in this video as part of our ongoing series on the subject of metal trunking
we're going to look at some of the accessories that you may come across when you're working
with this product most of the accessories that we are going to be looking at in this video relate to
50 mil by 50 mil trunking or though we are going to look at some accessories that relate to the
slightly larger 100 by 50mm trunking including a couple that will take that from being something
you just use to carry cables in something that's a little bit more practical for your electrical
installations so how we're going to divide up our accessories in this video Jake yeah well we're
going to look at the most common and uncommon accessories and what the manufacturer would call
them but also what we'd refer to them on site as well what we might know them as absolutely
and that's really important because obviously sometimes there's a bit of a divide between
what an on-site spark you might call something and what you might have to call it if you ever
go in the wholesalers so it does make a difference as Jake said we're splitting those into common and
uncommon accessories so if you think that we've got one in the wrong pile then by all means
please do let us know if it's something that you use all the time and we say that you don't use
it very often then please do correct us on that in the comments we'll have a comment and also
we want you to tell us any of the accessories that you think that we've missed that perhaps
might be valuable for people watching this video so which accessory are we going to start off with
should we start with the tee yes i like that's a nice common accessory so we'll bring that in
to overhead cam here so we've got our t-piece there Jake as we say it's a very common accessory
when you're working with trunking it's designed for 50mm by 50mm trunking but if we have a look
inside there what sort of things can we see that are of note yes it's worth knowing that the
trunking fits outside the tee to be fixed examples where you might use this uh you've got trunking at
a higher level and you need to drop down to get to some accessories etc yeah absolutely and of
course it's worth noting that this particular accessory in this trunking is from Atkor
other trunking manufacturers have slightly different designs so you may butt the trunking up
and then use a coupler to join the two together but in this case as you say it goes on the outside
and it's really interesting as well to note that if you look at the lid here
you can see that there's no fixing so there's no turnbuckles in here there's no screws again
this is applicable when using this type of trunking other manufacturers do it
slightly differently and what's interesting about that is that in order to hold this on
once you've got your trunking installed the lid will slide up to that point and then when you clip
that on it actually clips over the trunking lid and it that's what holds it in place so
it's just kind of sprung in place there we're going to look in future videos exactly how we
connect this together we're going to demonstrate that so watch out for that in a future video
okay so we'll take that one out of shot and now we're going to bring in
our next accessory so what are we looking at here Jake what's the common name for this so i'd call
it's a flat 90 i don't know about you joe that's exactly what i'd call it as well however when we
look at the manufacturer's website what are they referring to into this as a top lid bend a top lid
bend so again it shows the value of knowing these different things because you might be talking
about the same product with someone and not even know about it which is super handy obviously and
again we can see the accessory inside we can see the application for this if we've got a trunking
running along at high level and we need to make it come down at the end of its run down to a consumer
unit or a distribution board or something like that then obviously that's going to be really
handy and again we just bring the trunking slide it over the end there and then bring
your next section down and the lid just clips over that really nice and easily like that so
as we say that is a flat uh angle bend or as you'd call it Jake a flat 90 a flat 90 or a top lid bend
according to the Atkor website okay so moving on we're now going to look at another common
type of accessory here you can see that we've got another 90 degree bend but what sets this apart as
being different from the one that we just looked at Jake well they give it a different name they
call it an inside lid bend very good and we'd call that i would call that an internal 90 an internal
90 as well yeah absolutely and you can see when you look at this instead of the lid being on the
top face there it actually sits on that inside face that's why we'd refer to that as perhaps an
internal 90 degree bend and where would you be thinking about using this joint
so that'd be great for if you've dropped down you call you're coming against the wall and you need
to the wall there's a turn in the wall so you need to keep against that that brick wall for example
yeah that's good that's a good example yeah another one might be if maybe you're running your
trunking up the wall and you want to go across the ceiling again you'd bring your trunking up
against that and then you'd be able to run it out across the ceiling there if you're working above
a suspended ceiling or maybe even a car park or something like that so that is our internal 90
or as it's referred to by Atkor the inside lid bend very good right so just when you thought
we were done with 90 degree bends Jake we're not quite finished yet we've got another one to go
so what have we got here now so i would call that an external 90 Joe an external 90 yeah absolutely
i'd agree with that so again looking at it on the last one and if we compare those side by side
you can see on this one the lid was on the inside of the bend hence that's why we'd
call it an internal 90 degree whereas on this one the lid is actually on the outside and that
is why we call this an external 90 degree bend yeah however this is called an outside lid bend
according to the manufacturer so what sort of application are we thinking about for this Jake
yeah so perhaps you've got some trunking running um on top of a mezzanine floor and you then need
that trunking to come off the floor and run down the wall yep absolutely yeah so plenty of
applications for that as well and again any place where you need to be able to access the outside
of that bend to remove the lid and again all of these lids work in the exact same manner when you
bring the trunking in the lid will sit up to that point just there and then you can see if you look
closely on here you've got these little dimples that are on the inside face of the lid there
and that just snaps over the lid and locks into place which is pretty clever really it means it's
nice and easy to get those on and off but it's nice and secure once it's on there
next on the list Jake we've got these little devices so what are these all about
yep so these are used for joining two pieces drinking together and if i was gonna go into a
wholesalers and get a couple of these i'd ask for some couplers that's interesting because again on
the website where we found these they are referred to as connectors to join two accessories together
not required to connect 45 degree bend which i'm sure you'll agree just rolls off the top
yeah it's a bit of a mouthful really if you're going to go and order some of them yeah should
we stick to couplers stick to comfortable things so these are couples and as you say if you've
just got two straight pieces of trunking that you want to join together again you just bring
those two together pop that inside and again what's quite nice about this range of trunking is
it's got these little threaded holes inside there which means that you don't have to mess around
then with an extra nut on the inside and a bolt on the outside you've just got the one fixing screw
which again makes life simple keeps life easy and that is something that we really like
next on the list Jake we've got this little fella here so what's this called yeah so i would call
that an end cap yeah i'd call that an end cap as well uh however again you may see these referred
to as a stop end and what's the purpose of this where would we install this yep so when we've
finished with our last piece of trunking wherever that may be obviously we don't want to leave you
know the end of that open so fingers and objects can get in there we need to put an end cap on
there absolutely yeah so it might just finish like halfway along the wall or halfway down the wall
if the cables are passing through the wall or something like that and we want to make sure
that we seal that off as you say to maintain the IP rating of the enclosure so that's another good
good bit of kit there so end caps or stop ends so we'll remember that
and next on the list Jake we've got this little fellow so this looks very different to the stuff
that we've looked at so far it's a lot smaller so what's this that we're looking at yeah so they're
earth straps very good so where we've got two pieces of trunking that we're joining together
we may well need to install one of these in order to maintain continuity of the metallic
trunking system between those two pieces that's an interesting question actually it's one that we'll
throw out to the people who are watching right now do you install these as a matter of course
when you're installing metal trunking or do you only install it in certain conditions i'll be
interested to see what people's responses are to that and there may well be a future Q and A video
in that so watch out for that okay so moving on from the earth strap we're now going to start
talking about some of the less common devices that we find as part of our trunking installation
okay then Jake so next on the list we're looking at these ones that we think are
less common and it's interesting to see whether you who are watching at home agree with us on
this or not but i would say that this is a less common uh trunking accessory really so what have
we got here yep so it's a tee piece as you can see but there's a big difference to the other one
yep the bend is on the inside this the lid is on the inside this time sorry
yeah absolutely and when we looked at this earlier we'll compare them side by side so if we put those
next to each other you can see there that on the original tee that we looked at you could almost
think of this as a flat tee that the lid was on the front there you opened it up and you could see
where all the cables are going to run whereas now we've not got that kind of ability have we Jake so
again perhaps we're looking at an application for this maybe you've got a trunking just running in a
certain direction maybe it's running again over a mezzanine floor in a commercial installation
and you need to drop down from that onto the surface of a wall that sits like that that's
when this would really come into its own that's when that would be super helpful so
the internal tee or as they refer to it on the Atkor website this is the inside lid tee
so again making sure we're getting those different names clearly in mind okay then Jake so we'll get
rid of these uh tee pieces now and we're going to bring in the next piece now this is interesting
for me because i got to be completely honest i've never come across this in all my years in the
electrical industry i've never seen a an accessory like this before so what's what's going on here
it's a bit like a Rubik's cube that's not finished it is it's um so this is a turnover unit or as the
as they call it a change face unit yeah very good so again you can see the benefit here so sometimes
um what you don't ever want to end up with is a situation where the wrong face of the trunking
is fixed against the wall so if you ended up in a situation where you had that face of the trunking
fixed against the wall obviously getting the lid on and off would be a nightmare fixing it would
be very difficult it'd be an absolute pain to do that so with this this actually allows you the
opportunity to go from having the lid on one face to be able to access the inside of there and the
cables are within it to changing that onto another face onto the side there so again maybe if you're
coming down one wall and you hit another wall and it needs to swap its position over then you've
got the opportunity to do that so again we'd be really interested in hearing your comments on
this so please leave us some uh feedback below if you've come across these if you've installed these
and where you've done so because that is a really interesting bit okay i love seeing stuff that
i've never seen before and it's a reminder that however long you've been in this industry there's
always something new to learn about so what are we looking at here then Jake what do you got for me
now yep so this is a flange and where do you think we could use this Joe so i'm thinking that would
be quite good if i'm bringing a piece of trunking down to a consumer unit that would be a really
good way of attaching that to a distribution board or a consumer unit the advantages as well
if we're drilling and fixing with metal screws into there that's going to help maintain the
earth continuity from the consumer to the body of the trunking which is really good and again
you know perhaps you know we're never going to be able to cut out a perfectly square hole
maybe we've got a circular hole maybe it's maybe it's just a little bit too big for
the trunking to cover and if we're worried that you know we're going to violate the IP4X rating
that we need on top of that consumer unit or distribution board then that might help to
uh to sort of you know allow us to get around that a little bit so again a super clever little
bit of kit there the flange as you call it now related to this that's obviously that's a little
bit small isn't it we've only got the uh the 50x50 there and i'm sure you'll agree that
the busiest point in installation is where the cables enter the distribution board so what can
we do to kind of make our life a little bit easier when it comes to bringing cables into the consumer
unit or distribution board yep so we could use one of these right what do we got there this is
a bell mouth a bell mouth very good okay so that's what we're looking at so a very similar principle
trunking in this side and then on that side we've got a nice large opening that could fit into the
distribution board and if we tip that up you can see we've got a coupler in there because
what's interesting about this piece as well is you can see that this kind of changes the rule
on how this attaches to the trunking so in this case you can see you've got the fixings
on the lid there which means that you're not going to be able to put your trunking over that what's
going to happen in this case is you're going to have a coupler on the inside the trunking is going
to butt up against that and then the lid will just go over and cover that section as well so a
slightly different connection method but you've still got those lips there and the opportunity
to screw that and fix that into the top of the distribution board and we've got we're going one
bigger so just remind us what this is called again Jake so this is a bell mouth it's exactly the same
this is just for the large drinking that we have joe this is the 100 by 50 millimetre trunking and
that kind of flaring effect on there is really helpful as well because it means that your cables
can spread out a little bit which makes them easier for dressing and routing on the inside
of the distribution board which is really cool so we refer to that as a bell mouth a certain member
of the team who shall remain Gordon uh nameless this morning suggested that this uh this was
called a gusset so we're not entirely sure what was going on his head this morning but there
we go so uh according to the Atkor website it's called a bell mouth so we've got that one down now
now related to that Jake we've got another bit of kit here what uh what we're gonna look at next
yep so we've got a reducer some people might call it reduces you might call it something
else yeah i mean actually maybe you call it an enlarger i think it depends on your point of view
yeah is it is it glass half empty or is it half full exactly is it and then larger is it a reducer
so but again the principle is clear isn't it we've got a 50 mil
connection on this side 50 ml by 50 ml for your trunking there and on the other side we've got
that larger trunking that we mentioned earlier the 50mm by 100 so you can go from a smaller
to a larger or larger to a smaller depending on how you're wiring your cables there very good now
we mentioned at the start of the video Jake that we had something a little bit special to look at
at the end of the video that would kind of raise this up to the next level so what we
what we're looking at here what you're going to show us now yep so we've got some single socket
lids and a double socket lid as well okay so let's see those so that's the single socket lid
that we've got there and then the double one that we've got there so the idea behind these
is that they're gonna sit on top of the trunking lid on top of the trunking i should say and then
we're gonna be able to fix an accessory onto here is that right that's right yep so you can fix a
socket outlet for example directly onto that well that is pretty cool i'll tell you what let's bring
in a big piece of trunking so you just hold those for a moment let's bring in the slightly larger
size of trunking and pop that down there and then we can demonstrate that point quite neatly
look at that so you can actually have wiring accessories installed directly onto the trunking
which i think is absolutely fantastic that's great however that does bring up a whole kind of
raft of other issues doesn't it because all of a sudden we've gone from something that's just
containment it's just got cables running through it uh two accessories to now we've suddenly got
live terminals in the back of here so again we just have a socket sitting on the front
there which means that the terminals in the back are now forming uh sort of a slightly different
type of enclosure which is going to change our IP rating requirement for this and in order to
help us to maintain the IP rating requirement of trunking what else have we got to look at here
Jake so we've got something relating to the IP rating requirement so what's this all about yep
so we've got our joint covers when we when we've got two lids meeting up like this here we've
cut a piece of lid so we've expertly cut i might have been explicitly cut well done okay good work
and of course what could happen is that we've all been there when perhaps we've not cut things
as incredibly accurately as Jake has here we might end up with a slightly larger gap there
and if we want to maintain an IP4X rating of a piece of trunking or something like that
then this little cap here is absolutely perfect for that because that can just
snap on top of there like so and you can see that that has now effectively really covered that gap
up so you could have a slightly larger gap there and still maintain that IP4X rating which is
really quite fantastic actually i think that's a really good idea i love that so there we go in
this video we've explored some of those common accessories that you'll find in connection with
trunking installation and perhaps some of those accessories that we'd say are slightly less common
but what are we suggesting is the case if you don't agree with what we've said here Jake what
should the people would like to see comments below what would you put into the comment and uncommon
categories do you agree do you disagree with us absolutely and if you think we've missed anything
off the list if you think there's a critical accessory or something that perhaps other viewers
might just find helpful then please of course comment on that in the relevant section below
and of course as to all of your questions and all of your comments we can guarantee that Jake
will get back to every single one of those thank you very much for watching again that is my line