Water wicking in electrical harness
Water wicking in electrical harness
(OP)
What's the possibility of water wicking through an 18", 20 ga copper cunductor? If moisture is found in my encapsulated housing with the wire running into it, I'm wondering if I need to also look into the "sealed" connector which houses the wire and terminal.





RE: Water wicking in electrical harness
I once worked at company connected with the marine industry. They found the capillary action of water in the typical 16 AWG vinyl stranded wire could travel about 30" per minute in a horizontal direction. The water could also travel vertically a good distance also (I don't recall exactly but it was on the order of 1 to 3 feet).
RE: Water wicking in electrical harness
The way they stop gases from doing this (which of course works well for liquids) is to remove the insulation where the wire enters the potting so the potting actually adheres to the copper wire not the wire jacket.
You could possibly do this in stages so that the wire and jacket enter the potting compound but immediately the jacket ends and just the wire continues thru the potting on into the device.