Interested to know how others do this, particularly the professionals. When spurring off a socket on the ring, there's always 3 cables to fit into the holes. In the past I've tried twisting the 3 together, usually with pliers, but not always successfully, folding individual cables back on themselves just don't seems to fit even clamping them up tightly with pliers- 2 OK but not 3. Fitting them with a single strand seems to be the easiest way but is it a good idea?
John M
It's probably the only way. It helps to strip them the right length, and make sure you can see all three ends of the insulation below the edge of the plastic hole over the terminal all the time you are tightening them. Possibly twisting them together is a good idea if you can do it reproducibly, but I'm not convinced. I'd be interested in what the professionals do.
UK sockets aren't designed to have the ends folded over. Folding the single core enough to get it in will probably result in stress fractures. Then you have to be sure the screw is clamping the unbent bit and not the bit you have bent over as it could break later due to thermal creep and vibration.
I never fold them over, if they don't fit and grip its time to use a different brand of fitting.
Sockets vary widely in their terminal sizes - some will accept 3 x 2.5mm easily, others won't, even if they should.
For 3 cables twisting seems to make things harder.
Owain
If there was room in the box/pattress, would it be in line with the regs to use a 3-way Wago with the ring mains connected to that rather than the socket screw, and the single "output" connected to the screw terminal of the ring socket together with the spur wire to the new socket?
That would be equivalent to putting two sockets on a single spur off the ring which is not allowed.
John
Personally I don' twist[1]. Just strip the right length of insulation and insert all straight into the terminal. The quality of the connection will be the same, and its easier to separate for testing at a later stage if required.
(not a fan of using one bit of earth sleeving for multiple cables either)
[1] on odd occasions when terminating a single cable, it might be necessary to fold a wire end over to make a big enough target for the terminal screw.
Indeed. Hadn't thought of that. What about a different layout:
Ring in to current socket screw - new wire from that screw to 3-way Wago
- one of the two remaining Wago connections to the other ring main, and the final Wago connection to the new spur? That makes the Wago part of the ring, and the spur is off that.
Rubbish. The better quality brands allow two ends of a ring to be folded over.
If you must buy cheap crap from Homebase, the thats your problem.
I wondered about doing the same just the other day...
It's not "two sockets", it is a double socket, which is allowed on an unfused spur.
"Unfused spurs from a ring wired in the same cable as the ring are allowed to run one socket (single or double) or one fused connection unit (FCU)"
I think that what is being suggested is that, while the Wago connector joins both sides of the ring, there is the original spur coming off it (the one that led to there being three wires in the first place, and a new very short spur from the Wago connector to the local double socket.
Eh? Can you explain further?
You must search far and wide to find wire of such poor quality.
Screwing it down properly will centralise the cable gripping both equally. Just as happens with two separate cables.
Only time I'd fold a cable is where it is a single - like on a spur. No need with two or three.
Ah, you sort of mean two separate unfused spurs coming off the same point in the ring. While I am sure the regs don't permit daisy chaining, i.e an unfused spur coming off from the first socket of a fused spur, it's not obvious to me that this case isn't compliant (or electrically unsafe).
I can't see why it is likely to be a problem, but I think that was the point being raised about using a Wago connector.
Have you ever comes across a 13 amp socket that won't take 3 2.5mm cables?
No, that is the equivalent of putting one double socket on the end of an unfused spur, and that *is* allowed.
(one double is allowed since the nominal load is taken as 20A, and the minimum installed cable current carrying capacity on a ring circuit is 20A)
You can indeed run two spurs from the same point on the ring if required. Its not necessarily good practice if both are likely to be highly loaded as you will then create a high point load on the ring. However in this particular case where one "spur" is at most a couple of inches long its going to be close in function to it not being there at all.
Most will take that easily enough in ideal circumstances IME. However sometimes it can be difficult with awkward wire entry points, short tails, or old stranded T&E etc.
Is there really no BS standard?
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