- Today we're gonna look at the reliability
of electrical connections.
We're gonna be looking at conductors that are either fine
stranded or stranded copper and how they can be improved
by using ferrules.
This is something commonly used in Panel wiring
in an industrial situations.
However, when we sent out on social media photographs of
the use of ferrules, it kicked up quite a stir.
So therefore, we can address what the problem is first
and how it can be solved using a ferrule.
So I've got a here is a point seven five millimeter squared
flexible cable, okay, and it's commonly connected to things
such as fuse connection units, I've already stripped it to
the desired length and twisted the conductors up,
I am gonna double it over.
It's quite a large hole in which it's gonna go into
and then we get inserted in and see what happens
when I tighten that up on those stranded conductors.
Okay, so that's nice and tight.
We're gonna back off the screw.
Let's have a look at what's happened there.
Okay, so we can see there
that we've got our conductors spread out.
Now even though we twist them nice and tight,
they're now just spread out,
so there's less of them being in contact.
And it looks like it's weakened the copper in the area of
the other part of the conductor as well.
So a slightly weakened area here and we haven't caught every
single strand, we thought we had by twisting it up,
but we haven't.
Let's see how we can overcome that by using the ferrule on
the neutral conductor.
So we're using the German color coding system
and we'll do other videos between
the different color coding systems.
This is a white shoulder on it
for point seven five millimeter squared flex.
So let's strip back our conductors.
Okay, so if when surplus like so, I can strip that back,
and then we just place it into the actual ferrule into
the ferrule like that and we take a crimping tool.
What's really good about this crimping tool is it goes up
to 16 millimeters squared, but when the smaller sizes
gives you a guide in order to get in.
So we can just pop our guide into position,
push our ferrule through, squeeze it up.
Super simple, it's inserted into our termination.
And let's see what the result is now with the ferrule.
Get it nice and tight.
Get back off.
And we can now see we've got a really good solid electrical
connection there in the center of the actual ferrule itself.
It's got every single strand because the strands are held
within the actual pin itself.
So we know we've got the best possible electrical connection
and weakening of conductors like we had before where
the screw had gone in and maybe damaged some of them
and certainly spread them open.
We've got the maximum surface area of
the electrical connection by using this ferrule.
So let's have a look at another problem you can have with
fine stranded copper conductors, okay,
we've got to a connected strip here, this could be
the central heating controller system,
it could be crouching down, trying to obviously poke your
electrical connection in so let's position that into here
and see what happens to the conductors when
we go into here, like so.
And then let's tighten those off again, as we did before.
And we'll see whether the conductors themselves have any
issues ready, you can notice that we've got a stray copper
conductor just out there at the actual base itself.
There was no twisting going on this time.
We're just position the cables in there and we've got
a stray conductor there, which is not good.
Let's see what's happened to the actual conductors
themselves when it comes out.
Okay, I think we can clearly see that
that is a little bit of a mess.
We've got three or four maybe strands that were grabbed.
And then these ones here probably weren't.
We've also got one that's just actually poking out that
actually never even got into electrical connection at all.
So we can clearly see there's an issue there.
And again, let's do it again, this time using the ferrule
and see if we overcome that problem.
So we should be using now one millimeter squared flexible
cable, the actual shoulder on the ferrule now is identified
in this system with yellow.
So let's strip back the conductor I'll use the neutral
this time so let's strip it back to the desired length.
So and then then just position it into
the actual ferrule itself.
Hop in there, so we're in, we're gonna use the guide again,
sort of move that to one side and use the guide again.
So pop it through my guide,
and then just crimp it up.
And let's see what sort of electrical connection
we're gonna get now into this connector block.
So just take a position like so, I'm just gonna probably
do one of the screws to screw that down.
Okay, nice and tight, let's back it off,
so we can have a look at that.
We can compare the two.
Okay, so as we look at those is fairly low down, it's in
the copper part here.
So this is copper, tin, but it is copper.
And we can see the comparison we got all of the surface area
of the conductors here within the actual ferrule pin will
electrically connected within the connector screw.
whereas previously with a stranded conductors,
we had them spread out and we didn't have
the maximum surface area making that electrical connection
so we can see the benefit there of using the pin within
the ferrule so let's just show you the tool that I've been
using today the diversity of this tool is brilliant.
It goes from naught point naught eight millimeters squared
up to 16 millimeter squared in this one crimping tool,
with a lot more data coming in
for things connecting like CTS, etc.
We're now working with this conductor here,
which is naught point two five millimeter squared.
So we're gonna have a go and see if we can put a ferrule on
the end of this conductor.
So pop that on there like so.
Okay, and then I'm gonna use my guide,
I'm gonna pop it down to the smallest position on the guide.
Just drop my conductor in.
And there we go.
And that would make a lovely fantastic connection with such
a small conductor you know you're gonna get a quality
electrical connection when making that connection.
As I said, it goes all the way up to 16 mil.
So this tool can also cope with this size as well.
We'll have a look at doubles next.
So we've clearly seen how a single conductor going in
a ferrule makes a better electrical connection.
This time let's look at a jewel one a double.
So in other words, I've got two CPCs here and I want
to join them two together inside a ferrule before making an
electrical connection.
What I like about this is all I've had
to do is remove the PVC.
I'm not twisting these conductors together,
and I'm not doubling them over, I'm simply gonna insert
them into the double 2.5 millimeter squared ferrule like so.
Push it into position, take my crimping tool,
this time move the guide out the way up in,
crimp that one up.
And now I've got both conductors surface area in one pin
in order that I get the best possible electrical connection
before putting into the actual termination itself.
So when I pop it in there, and now I tighten it up,
I've got both of those conductors firmly securely under
the screw within the actual electrical enclosure itself.
So let's just back that one back off, just pull it out.
You can clearly see just there bang in the middle of
that piece of copper here which is the pin of
the actual ferrule itself is where we made
that electrical screw connection with both conductors
together, that's got to be simpler than twisting conductors
and doubling them over,
in order to make the best possible electrical connection.
I think we clearly proved on the bench top
by using a thermal you can make a better
and more reliable electrical connection.
Imagine now you're in a room, it's poorly lit,
you're crouching down,
you're in a panel making many connections
within the ferrules got to come into its own.
Think about maintenance or converting the circuit to have a
different control system and you're removing and reinserting
the terminations the ferrule again got to come into
its own in those situations.
In videos that will follow this,
we'll look at ferrules themselves,
we'll look at the color coding, we'll look at pins
and we'll look at the tools in order to connect them.
However in this video, I think we clearly demonstrate to
the electrician that when we strip out our conductor,
there's no twisting, there's no doubling over just a simple
ferrule will make a better electrical connection
and save electricians time and we like that at eFIXX.