Rate this high amperage SPLICE

[Dustydazzler]

Would this be considered acceptable over here ?

 

[UNG]

If it was acceptable we would have them over here as we have a lot of alternatives to wire nuts what would you use?

 

[Petej999]

Would this be considered acceptable over here ?

Don't ThInk so DD, typical cowboy fix from the US

 

[timhoward]

By the way, we do have them over here. This one is rated for 32 amps / 450v

Twister® 340® LT Wire Connector (Pack of 100)

Ideal Industries Networks Division

www.cef.co.uk

They do need to update their data sheet though:
"Designed to exacting European safety standards (EN 60998) and fully compliant with UK Wiring Regulations (BS 7671:2008), IDEAL manufactures a connector that’s right for every job."

It's more that we are all very set in our ways, and some of us remember the ceramic wire nuts which were pretty naff....

 

[pc1966]

Yes, ceramic ones were really horrible and I guess the plastic much the same be less likely to crack. It is true they "work" in that you can get a sound connection, but it is kind of a once-only joint (i.e. unding one and re-using the wire end is unlikely) and a crimp using the proper tool a bit more reliable.

The Wagos that seem to be today's choice are better in most ways except costing a few pennies more. But if your time is worth £50+ an hour I don't see it worth trying to save small amounts for this sort of way.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

As I always say, a good electrician can make a sound connection with more or less anything.

Based on my experience, a well-made wirenut connection using good-quality wirenuts on stranded conductors is very secure and effective. It is more resistant to fatigue snap-off failure than bare-screw terminal block because the cable is not pinched. It can be more resistant to pull-out than a Wago and of lower resistance, because multiple contact points exist under very high pressure rather than two under well-defined but moderate pressure.

But there is a weakness, which is that it is quite easy to make a wirenut connection badly, especially with solid conductors and where those conductors are not ideally positioned and of ample length to ensure perfect preparation. One conductor can end up wrapped around the other(s) and taking most of the pressure, resulting in one or more conductors being loose or only in indirect contact. Unless you have a lot of practice, sub-optimal seating of the wires in the nut can go unnoticed.

Wirenuts can be a menace with aluminium and to a lesser extent with dirty / corroded copper conductors, because if the conductors don't make perfect contact with each other directly, the wire spiral (having scored grooves into the clean copper) ends up carrying current from one to the other, working like a little heating element because it is steel, so relatively higher resistance than the conductors. This problem doesn't apply to traditional porcelain Scruits incidentally.

All of this and more needs to be understood to make consistent wirenut connections under all conditions. This is where the Wago really scores because if there is a connection, it is almost certainly a good one; it is hard to make a bad job that goes unseen and causes trouble later. It makes bad electricians' connections as good as good electricians' connections, taking the skill out and levelling the performance just as a torque screwdriver does.

To sum up, don't knock wirenuts, they can work very well and in some ways better than some alternatives. But they can be fickle and their disadvantages can outweigh the advantages.

 

[R-fur]

The modern plastic wire nuts have a metal spring inside which I beleve makes them better than the porcelain ones. Wirenuts were invented by a guy origionaly from Troon in Ayrshire who had emigrated to Canada. The Canadians still refer to them as Marretts.
Below is from the Marrettes webpage;




At the turn of the twentieth century, a young Scotsman named Bill P. Marr immigrated to Ontario, Canada. After settling in the Toronto area, Marr was soon employed by the T. Eaton Company as a contractor for Ontario Hydro, where he worked as an electrician converting gas-lit homes to electrical incandescent lighting. As part of this conversion, the accepted practice back then was a process called “solder and tape.” Typically, a mechanic would first run the wires required, then an electrician would polish the exposed conductors and twist them together. Next, the ends of the wires would be firmly joined by dipping them in a pot of molten solder, and after they cooled, the wires would then be wrapped with an insulating tape. Over time, this process proved to be both time consuming and dangerous, as Bill Marr discovered first-hand when he inadvertently spilled a scorching solder pot while working in a customer’s home. Convinced that there had to be a safer and more efficient way of joining two electrical conductors, Marr worked tirelessly in his basement shop until he finally invented the first pressure-type wire connector (a set-screw version that was the forerunner to the modern-day wire connector). Since that day in 1914, the Marr® company became a leading manufacturer of twist-on wire connectors throughout North America. The Marrette brand so revolutionized the way branch circuits were connected that the term “marrette” has become synonymous with “wire connector” in the electrician’s vocabulary. Since being acquired in 1997 by Thomas & Betts, which was in turn acquired in 2012 by ABB, the highly respected Marrette brand name has become an integral part of the vast ABB product offering to