When it comes to powering the various things on your 3D printer such as your heated bed or your
hot end, you want to make sure the wires for those connections are secured in these terminals very
well so that they don't come loose. However, there is a raging debate on the internet as to what the
best way to secure those wires of these terminals are. That really centers around whether or not you
should be using wires that are tinned like this and reality tins their wires from the factory.
They do that because it makes assembly much easier. When they're pre-tinned, you don't have
copper wire strands going everywhere and they just slot in nicely. Some people say doing that
will eventually lead to some wear on the terminals and the wires might come loose
because of that and that would not be good. The solution that people say is use bare copper
and just slot that in. Now, it doesn't go in quite as nice, and it has its own problems
when securing itself into the terminals here. You know what? No one is debating
the fact that ferals are the actual best way to handle this.
There is a tool and a product that is designed specifically for this task.
People who deal with things like audio and when they build speakers and connect to their amp,
no, that ferrules are very good for these types of connections. When it comes to 3D printing,
that's no different. What is a ferrule? It is a little crimped connection that goes over
the bare wire, like so. Then once it's over the wire, you take a crimping tool and you slide it
over the metal portion of the ferrule and you squeeze real hard, let go, and you've got this.
Now, this connection is more or less square now rather than a circle and it's held on extremely
well. That thing is just not coming off. You have the benefit. The fact that these
slide in quite nicely compared to the stranded wire, see. Goes in.
When you screw everything down, the connection that is made
is absolutely secure. You can pull on this a lot. If we're talking about a vendor three,
for instance, the bed moves a lot. Of course, your hot in moves a lot. Sometimes those wires tug.
If it's tugging a little bit you don't want it to come loose because if that happens,
well, electricity goes where it shouldn't and that's what can contribute to problems
like your mainboard here, catching on fire. Well, you don't want to burn your house down.
The tool here is like $30 for this really nice ferrule as well as all these ferrules.
If you're doing any sort of maintenance on your printer and you've got to get to the mainboard
anyway, it is very much worth your time to ferrule every connection and do it properly.
Let's be clear here. This is the best way to handle this particular type of connection.
If you can spare the $30, very much it is worth your time to do this.
Hopefully, this little tidbit of information can help you prevent burning your house down because
it is a matter of safety after all. I hope that was informative.