Wired up some lights

For choc blocks, I'd be using this instead of tape:

if its undercupboard lights, I'd wire it in via the lgithing circuit (usually protected by a 6A MCB or RCBO rather than via a fused pulg into a 32A ring main.

That is exactly what I did use.

So would I, but it's an entire woodworking shop in the lounge, and the lighting circuit is inaccessible (council flat so no alterations to the fixed wiring permitted).

So far the lathe, compressor, 2 hoovers on a cyclone barrel and 2 extractor fans for the heat haven't blown anything (apart from hot air!)

Owain

Is that necessary? I'm probably guilty as charged. I always thought the solder would just squash down and improve the contact.

What is wrong with tinned ends in screw terminals?

That was my thinking too. And even if you twist together the strands I would expect the act of screwing the screw to splay them out with some ending up not under the screw.

Or is striplight wire solid conductor which therefore wouldn't need tinning?

Solder creeps and copper doesn't. Therefore soldering / inning wires is a bad thing. Best use ferrules instead.

On boats there is are rules against using solder and to use crimps or ferrules.

The usual concern is that you can do a good connection at the time, and make it gas tight, but then the solder relaxes and creeps with time. Which then makes for a lose connection that is no longer gas tight.

It does. Only issue is potential failure due to flexing as with any solder to stranded transition.

Which is why we use supporting sleeving and mechanical location . With gaffer tape it would be ugly, but probably OK

all metals creep. If you go down hard enough on solder covered copper the solder all gets displaced anyway.

More a corrosion issue there.

OK - thanks.

Copper is regarded as being sufficiently creep resistant such there is no need for maintenance schedule for checking the clamping of copper cables in screw terminals.

Far from it.

I accept that individual strands can be tinned for corrosion resistance, but not whole flexible cables into a single mass of copper and solder.

I work for a large company/client who start every meeting with a "Safety Share". At one meeting the share was to be given by one of the Safety Officers - only he wasn't there, as on his way home, the night before, he'd obviously not been looking where he was going and had ridden his bicycle into the back of a parked car!

I did that in daylight! Not good for the nose:-(

My excuse is that the crank bearings were making a noise so I was looking down.

Luckily the car suffered no damage and belonged to a lady doctor who drove me straight to hospital.

Nothing to do with boats per se.,

Nothing to do with boats, per se.

Mechanical support from stranded to solid transition is a pre requisite in all vibration prone environments

H&S assessor that did the local Scout hut got run over wearing hi viz on the zebra crossing outside the hut

Well if he'd gone to the Tufty Club instead...

Owain

No indeed, He was not from Spain by any chance was he?

Their methods tend to my mind be bodgit and run. Thing is these days you can pick up cable joiners pretty cheap which would have made it safe in the first place. Brian

I mean even some clingy heat shrink sleeping would have been better than tape. The adhesive gives up after a while. Brian

Not Spanish.

From the little I've seen of Spanish builders they actually look to do an okay job - if they ever turn up or finish it.

Owain