In the good old days I would have used junction boxes but now these have to be 'accessible' I ought to use an alternative.
I have tried crimps in the past and been thoroughly disillusioned with them. I have found them unreliable and easily pulled apart, even with ratchet crimping pliers.
Is there an alternative convenient and affordable method recommended where access is not required.
Correctly made crimp joints with a decent ratchet crimper should not pull apart. Something else is wrong with your technique or equiopment.
In Oz I believe they solder all joints and use heat shrinkable sleeving. Can anyone confirm this ?.
Wago connectors and similar seem to be the favourite way these days.
wago connectors in a wagobox.
I inaccessible, the connectors need de-rating [to 20A? I think for 222 series] and there's a total current limit [of 50A? I think] for all circuits within a single box, some of the older wagoboxes didn't have the "MF" mark.
Solder and heat shrink. Or Wago.
I would, because I am utterly familar with it, solder any 'out of sight' cable joins. Using best MilSpec practivce. That is the wires are twisted or bent around each other so they cannot come apart, BEFORE soldering
Many thanks. I can't seem to find any info on their derating?
What's the significance of the MF mark?
"MF" officially makes them "maintenance free" see the final section of
There may be newer info for the newer 221 connectors and XL boxes.
I have a ratchet crimper from TLC Direct (recommended here by someone knowledgeable, IIRC). I did some practice work (on offcuts of cable) & found that I got better results after adjusting the crimper one notch (then I started using it "for real").
I like them. (I have seen bad reviews on the WWW of off-brand imitations.)
If access is not required surely nobody could know what you did, ie a junction box. Brian
Soldering is my preferred, but beware of one gotcha. Wires must be made immovable before soldering, otherwise any movement will separate the wires in time. A screw jbox can immobilise the wire ends, or more twists than you'd expect to be necessary can. What appears to be enough twisting is definitely not.
NT
Until years later, when the terminals work loose & the lights start flickering (or worse).
Which may be either the crimper or the crimp itself. Beware of cheap crimps!
Industrial C&I plant is almost invariably constructed with crimps these days.
That's very useful, thanks. It seems the 222 series would be fine for lighting or a max 20A circuit.
The 221 series is outlined:
I feel this may well be the case. I've used Silverline and other crimpers where I've been able to pull the cable out of the connector.
These seem fine for 20A or less but I'm not sure if there are an series that can be used for a 32A ring.
Is this their DV DHCR15 tool?
They do seem a good choice.
Well yes because the solder itself shouldn't be regarded as a mechanical coupling.
Bill
You are not doing it right.
No to soldering normally but yes to heat shrink sometimes.
Do the rules assume an reasonably equally loaded leg of a ring is half of 32A?
Has the OP considered one of these?
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