Hey Everybody,
I am looking for some waterproof connectors in saltwater (ocean water). I am driving 3 valves underwater up to about 50 psi, and I want to be able to be able to disconnect these components for servicing. The valves themselves are already in a waterproof enclosure and wires are ported through the enclosure and potted with marine epoxy. If I was redesigning this, I would probably use a bulkhead connector. But at this time I have opted to use a free-hanging connector to provide the ability to electrically disconnect and service. I am using 12VDC and the valves draw about 1A while opening.
I am looking at WM4562-ND and WM4569-ND for the male and female connectors, respectively. I would like to use one of these male/female pairs for each valve. Do I need to worry about arcing across the the connections? Will these connectors work in saltwater?
TIA,
–Neal
Greetings,
If immersion for any length of time and/or to any appreciable depth is envisioned, I’d suggest skipping straight to the IP68/69 rated products. Something like these might be similar to those mentioned.
Whether or not any of these would work in saltwater depends on what one means by “work.” It’s one thing to have something function for a limited time period with expectation of failure at some point, quite another to expect things to be reliable over a long time period. At 12VDC, saltwater ingress might lead to excess current leakage in the short term and an unreliable connection over time as the contacts corrode, but offhand I wouldn’t really to expect “arcing” per-se to be an issue. It might be a different story were a person to do something very silly (like getting that 12V via an unfused connection to a source capable of supplying 20,000A) but at that point a person would be likely to have made other bad choices that would push connector selection a ways down the list…
