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hi youtubers  jeff cote here from pacific outsystems  we've got a question from donald on  welding  cable jeff i've been watching a lot of  your youtube  videos and i noticed that you mentioned  many times not using welding cables  for main battery cables everything i've  learned is that they flow more power and  less resistance  can you please explain that i don't see  how this is a problem if the cables are  properly made with soldered  and heat shrink ants donald  well donald let's go through  let's think about a little bit about  what are the implications  of going with welding wire first of all  welding wire  is not color coordinated they only comes  in black so  you're going to be wearing basically all  your main distribution with  black wiring and that's going to be  confusing later down the road if you  have other technicians  or other boat owners and they're going  to try to figure out what are all these  black wires doing which one is positive  which one is negative  and then people might have to rely on  the heat shrink  and so i'm not a big fan of using black  for everything  i like to make things easy simple and i  think it's important to have color  coordinated cables  but let's assume that you can overlook  that and for you colors are not that  important on your boat  and you're going to find a way to solve  that problem the next issue is actually  the installation  the jacket of a welding cable is over  time  uh gonna become brittle and i was on a  boat last week  uh the boat is probably from 1990s  and the welding cable that is connected  from the starters  to the engine batteries actually is  cracked everywhere i was showing the  owner the shoulder was absolutely  shocked  and it was almost like this or an orange  peel  literally have it you could see the bare  wires  underneath uh the insulation  so that's one reason why you shouldn't  do welding cables  is that the jacket of a welding cable is  actually gonna  become brittle over time and the other  thing too that's even scarier is that if  ever that cable actually  gets exposed to like for example oil or  fuel  you're actually going to notice and this  is the scary part and this is really  scary  the jacket the insulation can actually  dissolve and i've seen it on boats where  actually there was a diesel leak  and the welding cable that basically was  touched by diesel  the insulation actually melted so that's  now two good reasons  the other thing too is that welding  cable in a lot of instances  doesn't flex as well as some of the  marine cabling  and also remember these connections are  untimed  right so you're thinking about all these  reasons and i know the cost is higher  but  think about a welder a welder doesn't  buy a welding cable  and says to there's partner you know i'm  so glad i bought this cable it's going  to last me the next  40 years it's a wear and tear  item they might use that cable for a  year two years and then they're going to  move on and buy another one but as a  boater  whatever we do on a boat is not a one  year  five-year 10-year horizon we're talking  about  20 30 40 years so if you're gonna do  something on your boat  my suggestion is do it right at the  beginning  and so that you never have to retrace  your steps and do it again  because as we know as voters the list of  things to do  never ever ends and hence why we  never do anything with welding cable  and more often than not we are actually  removing it and replacing it with marine  grade cable  so that's a really good question donald  hopefully that explains that  thanks for watching everyone and if  you've got further questions please send  them our way  thank you