The Mountain
Active Member
As a preliminary step to my aux lighting install, in case I can't find a "good" purpose-built harness for the light I want, I bought a third-party switch off of Amazon. It's a two-wire switch, no illumination, and has a decent milled-aluminum housing. The switch itself is a basic round rocker, and looks like it is also a more universal unit that they made a separate housing for, so I am going on the assumption that the switch unit itself is already weatherproof.
Here's a pic:
The question I have is that, since the aluminum housing is just built after the fact to house the switch module, the cable coming out the back doesn't fit exactly through the hole. There's a gap of about 2mm all the way around the wire, with no strain relief or bulkhead grommet. I'm concerned that this could allow moisture and grime to build up inside the switch housing, and also since the wire is loose, I'd be worried that over time vibration and movement might abrade the outer insulation on the cable (each wire inside the cable is also individually insulated of course). Do you think my concerns are valid, and would it be a good idea to push a blob of silicone into that hole around the cable to seal the housing and hold the cable in place? Or is it better to leave the housing vented so that any moisture at least can eventually evaporate out?
Here's a pic:
The question I have is that, since the aluminum housing is just built after the fact to house the switch module, the cable coming out the back doesn't fit exactly through the hole. There's a gap of about 2mm all the way around the wire, with no strain relief or bulkhead grommet. I'm concerned that this could allow moisture and grime to build up inside the switch housing, and also since the wire is loose, I'd be worried that over time vibration and movement might abrade the outer insulation on the cable (each wire inside the cable is also individually insulated of course). Do you think my concerns are valid, and would it be a good idea to push a blob of silicone into that hole around the cable to seal the housing and hold the cable in place? Or is it better to leave the housing vented so that any moisture at least can eventually evaporate out?
