quote:

In this video I cover some of the biggest, most common, and potentially dangerous mistakes that people make when connecting electrical wires together. We are going to look at the mistakes of using wire nuts, wagos, and the wiring itself. Then I will show the correct ways each should be done and some better practices.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jeP1d8PC1I

Steve, Al... is he on the money with these? (if you don't have time to watch a longish video, no prob...)

quote:

Originally posted by wtg:

quote:

In this video I cover some of the biggest, most common, and potentially dangerous mistakes that people make when connecting electrical wires together. We are going to look at the mistakes of using wire nuts, wagos, and the wiring itself. Then I will show the correct ways each should be done and some better practices.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jeP1d8PC1I

Steve, Al... is he on the money with these? (if you don't have time to watch a longish video, no prob...)

That’s a good video and a nice promo piece for Ideal. . A few comments:

1. He’s right about Ideal Twister wire nuts. They’re not the cheapest but they’re the best. He’s also right about twisting the wire nut until the wire twists too.

What I was surprised to see was him pre-twisting the wires. Ideal used to warn not to pre-twist wires but I see they’ve changed their instructions. Pre twisting hasn’t been necessary since people stopped using 3M Scotchlocks - a truly miserable design that was the gold standard back in the day.

2. He refers to the little orange wire nut as “cheap”. Ideal will not be happy about that as although there are cheap ones out there (they come with Chinese light fixtures), Ideal makes them too.

What they are for is wires small enough that you can get a proper twist on the wires - typically in light fixtures. I never use them on wires larger than #16.

3. I’ve never seen a WAGO connector with levers like that. The ones we used were strictly a push- in deal. Very reliable and very efficient when connecting 4+ wires but too expensive to use for just 2 or 3.

I've been doing DIY electrical work most of my life. Started when I was very young helping my father remodel our basements in every house I ever lived in.

To me all of what he showed in the video is just common sense to me.

Never used the Wago connectors though. Seems to me that they would be an unnecessary expense.

quote:

Originally posted by markj:

Never used the Wago connectors though. Seems to me that they would be an unnecessary expense.

Depends on how much you pay for labor and how concerned you are about repetitive motion medical claims. If you’re a union contractor paying scale the slight increase in cost for WAGOS may well be covered by lower labor costs.

Insurance will cover repetitive motion claims but no one really wants them.

I do electrical work only for myself. I use twisting caps most of the time. I rarely use the push-in stuff, typically only when the wires are either too thick or too many to fit into a twisting cap, or when the twisting cap itself is “too thick” to fit. The push-in stuff has a thinner, flatter profile so sometimes they can fit in places where twisting caps would not.