Girl next door has sliced her hedge trimmer cable in half. I'd previously fixed her battery powered door-bell wire with some crimp connectors and heat-shrink. She thought In could do same with hedge-trimmer. Ahem.
I know ideally it should be replaced entirely but its 30m of chunky high quality cable, and every penny counts for her at mo, so any suggestions for decent connectors or similar?
They are nice and rubbery, so take knocks without problems, 3-pin version available if it's not a double insulated trimmer.
Similar method should work. offset the crimp joiners by a inch or so and lay in a short length of stiff wire (coathanger?)to reinforce the joint. Bind with several layers of self amalgamating tape. to insulate and seal.
+1
Probably best to say that there is a right and wrong way to fit them. You do not want the male connector on the live lead.
+1
Yeah, that's the sort of thing that I used when I, um, sliced my hedge trimmer cable. Mine may have had a lock type thing too so it clicks in and doesn't come apart.
Actually it was quite handy since I sliced it near the trimmer. So now I have a nice 1m cable attached to the trimmer, with a separate extension cord. Actually makes handling easier.
Then you can no longer coil the cable.
Many thanks chaps, but...
Pardon my ignorance, but will a RCD work with a 2pin connector? Safe?
And if you are not used to fitting them remember to push the flex through the hole on the outer cover then slide it out of the way, before you neatly insert the conductors into the screw terminals tighten them and then do up the cable grip.
G.Harman
Not just me then:-)?
If the appliance is double insulated it will have the square-within-square icon on it, if it doesn't have the icon, it will have a 3 pin lead and you'd use the 3-pin connectors.
RCDs don't need an earth wire to work, if the amount of current going "out" the Live doesn't equal the amount coming "back" via Neutral, some has been lost and the RCD will trip.
Got a stanley knife, ain't you?
The RCD will work - depending on the problem.
Don't see why.
My *preferred* method would be to solder, with each conductor protected by sticky heat shrink, and sticky heat shrink over the top. I don't think a "stiffener" is necessary in that case. But I've done a lot of soldering and used a fair bit of heat shrink. If the OP is happy with crimping, a crimped repair with heat shrink, self amalgamating tape, or even just ordinary PVC electrical tape wound on with a fair bit of tension should make a good repair. The duraplug solution will be quicker and as others have pointed out, if the failure is near the tool this can be convenient for storage.
For that matter if the failure is within (say) a metre of the tool it is probably better to rewire the good piece into the tool, and discard the odd metre. This assumes the OP is happy to dismantle the tool; in the old days the wire would invariably terminate in normal screw connectors (like a 13A plug or socket) but these days spade connections or crimps are sometimes used. But that is really the most elegant solution if the lost metre is not a problem.
Fitted loads, still forgot sometimes .
Worked for the standard 3 pin DuraPlugs in the days before they changed the design, but if you did it to the ones we are talking about you would need to make a long cut that would mess it right up,could always wrap in insulation tape I suppose. Watched my mate get in a right strop once, he forgot the cover while fitting a joiner version to some cable coming of a drum, which would be snipped to about 10" long and then that cut end would later be fitted to a motor. We could have mentioned it before he did up all the terminals and the grip but we didn't and watched him undo them then place the flex through the hole and remake the terminals. At which point I said "Pete, why didn't you just snip the (18") length off the drum and slide the cover from that end rather than undo everything. Miserable sod was quite rude to me.
G.Harman
On 11 May 2015, Andy Burns grunted:
Why is everyone suggesting a 'plug-and-socket' arrangment for a repair? When someone (cough) did mine, I repaired it with something along these lines:
I've got a hedge trimmer like that. :-)
Is that IP44 rated, which the Duraplug connector is?
When you say in half, it really depends on whether the connector is going to be used to support the cable etc. Personally, I'd not risk such a repair. There are supposedly garden safe connectors about to lengthen cables. You pays yer money and takes your chances. Brian
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