screwits

[itselectric]

I'm a bit of a dinosaur. so I can remember these cable connectors which were generally used on lead wiring in the metal junction boxes. I never had occasion to use them but stripped plenty out during rewires. For those younger sparks who have never come across them, they were porcelain and shaped like a thimble. I mention these because in my apprenticeship days I was told they were banned from use because of unsafe connections and in some cases the fell off due to vibration under floors, thus being a fire risk and possibly the cause of some electrical fires I walked into C.E.F the other day and on the counter was a modern version of these. they are not made of porcelain but plastic with a sprung wire insert. My question is, is this a step backwards or have these new ones got a better grip. Apparently they have passed a safety test. Why can't I start paragraphs on this site.:confused5:

 

[GLENNSPARK]

In the US they call them wirenuts and they are still one of the most common methods of jointing. US companies like Ideal Industries who are one of the major makers of better quality wirenuts are probably trying to sell their products in wider markets in these days of globalisation. They might have a home market for them for many years to come just through inertia, but like fin170 I can't see the point of promoting them here given the alternatives available. People are creatures of habit, so the UK likes its double-screw choc block just like the Europeans like single-screw, the Americans like wirenuts and have got used to how bad they are!

FWIW the original UK-made ones were called Scruits (not Screwits) and they came in 'normal' and 'midget' sizes. Midget were OK up to a few 3/.029s but more than that called for a normal size. People often tried to cram too many wires into too small a Scruit leading to hopelessly bad connections.

There have been some damning reports on the the wirenuts sold in the US for pigtailing onto aluminium cable, sorry... aluminum... where the oxide on the cable often stops the cables making direct contact with one another. Contact then only occurs where the spring cuts into the core, so all the current goes around thin spring steel wire like a little heating element. Crazy!

it is ideal industrys lucien...and i`v got a load in a jar that i swiped at last years elex show in harrogate...
their still in that jar...

 

[Knobhead]

it is ideal industrys lucien...and i`v got a load in a jar that i swiped at last years elex show in harrogate...
their still in that jar...

Throw the bloody things in the bin!

 

[Knobhead]

We still use the porcelain screwits/scruits very occasionally for high temp applications such as bead insulated kiln elements.

Hang on Marvo. that is specialist gear.

I used Garelco porcelain connectors for our analytical kilns. There is an art to making them off.

Screwit’s (whatever) I wouldn’t trust!

EVER!

 

[Marvo]

They're not the actual srcuits, they're twist-on and very similar and they come from the element supplier for those specific elements

 

[kingeri]

My house was full of Screwits when I moved in, most were not in enclosures either. They were a major factor in getting a move on to do the rewire. In places they had been used seemingly just to join two lengths of cable because they didn't have a single length long enough! Was metric t&e as well, at the time I think I estimated early to mid eighties.