Metalclad sockets

What's the best practice and most workmanlike way to install a row of metalclad sockets, using the conduit holes in their ends to cable between them? Incoming supply is on round conduit, but there seems to be no simple, neat fitting (that's stocked somewhere too!) for making this trivial connection. So far I've used conduit nipples and four locknuts (two between, so that the faceplates still fit), but that's actually a rather expensive way of doing it, particularly as the nearest stockist who carries them is 30 miles away.

Is a pair of rubber grommets considered acceptable? Presumably bare steel isn't, even though that's what was there previously!

Reply to
Andy Dingley
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I tend to use conduit couplers with a male bush either end. You could cut it down if you wanted them closer together.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Assuming you don't need metal conduit between the sockets, then 20mm plastic conduit with the solvent weld couplers on the ends ought to do it:

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Reply to
John Rumm

Andy Dingley has brought this to us :

A 20mm galv coupling and two brass bushes between each socket.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

I'm trying to close couple them though, so that the faceplates are almost touching.

I don't particularly need metallic connection between them as, even if I did, I'd still need to put copper between the earth bonding terminals.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

Andy Dingley brought next idea :

Then the only way to do it properly is with 20mm nipples, a couple of lock rings for spacers and locknuts in the boxes.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

Double nipple from the black iron fittings section, and flat nuts. The hex middle will be your spacer.

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

In fact I misread your original post... I was assuming a row of spaced out sockets. Yup I would have thought a rubber grommet in each knockout, and a length of T&E spanning the (very small) gap would be fine. The sockets themselves will provide impact damage for the cable simply by their proximity.

Reply to
John Rumm

Conduit coupling and two male bushes.

Reply to
harry

Where do you find those though? I've used some of those (stock from half-a-century ago), but trying to buy any more the wholesalers have looked at me as if I was planning to suckle a witch's familiar with it.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

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two nuts should do it.

Mike

Reply to
Muddymike

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and two nuts should do it.

I didn't think that conduit used BSP threads. It's something fine, I believe.

Reply to
charles

Sounds OK to me.

Reply to
ARW

Black iron /gunbarrel fittings are readily available from local suppliers to me, so must be made in quantity somewhere and there will be a stockist nearby to you. I just get them from the farmers' store, but wholesale plumbing stockists do them too.

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

Use plumbing nuts, then. ffs.

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

In message , Grimly Curmudgeon writes

I thought that you should be wary of mixing plumbing and electrics, or doesn't it work that way in this case?

When I recently moved a twin 13A socket in my 1930s home I did find that the metal conduit was 1/2" BSP which was "fun" after I had gone to the trouble of threading a length of 22mm to replace it and found the old nuts wouldn't fit :-(

Reply to
Bill

It all seems a bit OTT to me. I would just get the router out and route some suitable slots in a length of plastic conduit and thread the intermediate boxes on it and terminate the ends. The back boxes are screwed to the wall!?

Reply to
dennis

That's a pipe fitting though. I haven't tried this, but extrapolating from the similar fittings I have for the compressed air plumbing, it's not going to tighten flat against a sheet, as the thread and the nut faces (such as they are) are some distance apart.

What would be ideal are the old brass fittings I'm using, a double male nipple, but I can't find a supplier for any more of them.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

Conduit changed from imperial to metric about the same time as cable did. And although close, the threads ain't the same. Rather like socket fixing screws which went from IIRC 5BA to 3.5mm.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

In message , "dennis@home" writes

This was a fairly thin wall with sockets either side and they had used conduit through the wall to join the backs of the two boxes together. When the wall was partially demolished and rebuilt I went to do something similar and re-use the original nuts.

Reply to
Bill

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