I stumbled across this article by accident the other day on fire hazards with improper terminals/lugs and fine stranded cable.
I don't do house wiring, but I do occasinally work with fine stranded cable so I thought it was interesting reading.
I was always under the impression that fine stranded cable could carry more current than equivalent gauge Class B cable. That and it's more flexible, and I can buy it by the foot at any welding supply so I tend to use it more often.
If I'm doing things wrong - please tell me a better way:
On welder connections with set screws I wrap the end of the cable in a strip of soft copper sheet and use the little steel spreader tab that come supplied with the connectors. I'm not too worried about this - seems good and strong, well connected. It also goes 100% with the manufacturer's directions. (I do notice that if you flip the direction of curvature on the spreader tab it holds better on smaller gauges)
But on crimp-on lugs I'm a little worried now. I didn't know there was two types. I do use the long ferrule crimp on lugs with a rounded off chisel to crimp them (I can't justify the expense of a commercial "bolt-cutter style" crimper and haven't been able to find a little "hammer type" one locally). I then fill the lug with solder and add a heat shrink sleeve. Is this a bad practice? Any suggestions are appreciated.
I don't have to do anything that meets a code requirement, but this is the part that has me questioning the integrity of my crimps:
I assume with AC changing polarity 60 times a second any arcing would be more quickly destructive than on something like a battery cable, but I figure high current is still high current no matter what it's wired to or what direction it's going. There's a diesel place nearby that I can have crimp my large lugs (2/0), but ocassionally I have to make a jumper or power lead for something that involves smaller cable. The guy at one of my welding supply stores said "Hmmm, I dunno - I just use a big vise" when I asked about 4 gauge crimping tools, so I'm not really impressed with his knowledge. I already know that driving a set screw directly into fine stranded cable will tear the sh!t out of it. Should I switch to using the class B stuff for my small projects or is there something I'm missing? I think Home Cheapot sells normal Class B cable down to about #4 or #6 by the foot.
Thanks - Matt
I don't do house wiring, but I do occasinally work with fine stranded cable so I thought it was interesting reading.
I was always under the impression that fine stranded cable could carry more current than equivalent gauge Class B cable. That and it's more flexible, and I can buy it by the foot at any welding supply so I tend to use it more often.
If I'm doing things wrong - please tell me a better way:
On welder connections with set screws I wrap the end of the cable in a strip of soft copper sheet and use the little steel spreader tab that come supplied with the connectors. I'm not too worried about this - seems good and strong, well connected. It also goes 100% with the manufacturer's directions. (I do notice that if you flip the direction of curvature on the spreader tab it holds better on smaller gauges)
But on crimp-on lugs I'm a little worried now. I didn't know there was two types. I do use the long ferrule crimp on lugs with a rounded off chisel to crimp them (I can't justify the expense of a commercial "bolt-cutter style" crimper and haven't been able to find a little "hammer type" one locally). I then fill the lug with solder and add a heat shrink sleeve. Is this a bad practice? Any suggestions are appreciated.
I don't have to do anything that meets a code requirement, but this is the part that has me questioning the integrity of my crimps:
Thoughts/Notes:
I assume with AC changing polarity 60 times a second any arcing would be more quickly destructive than on something like a battery cable, but I figure high current is still high current no matter what it's wired to or what direction it's going. There's a diesel place nearby that I can have crimp my large lugs (2/0), but ocassionally I have to make a jumper or power lead for something that involves smaller cable. The guy at one of my welding supply stores said "Hmmm, I dunno - I just use a big vise" when I asked about 4 gauge crimping tools, so I'm not really impressed with his knowledge. I already know that driving a set screw directly into fine stranded cable will tear the sh!t out of it. Should I switch to using the class B stuff for my small projects or is there something I'm missing? I think Home Cheapot sells normal Class B cable down to about #4 or #6 by the foot.
Thanks - Matt