diy solar

diy solar

Will...Ferrules - check them out. :-)

kevinC

New Member
Joined
Sep 24, 2019
Messages
1
Sorry, I am a dad and I just have to make the pun if it is in front of me.

Will, Have you seen electrical ferrules?
The are similar to electrical terminal, but they crimp onto the ends of stranded wire. Then when you put them under a screw or clamp they keep the strands together to maintain maximum electrical conductivity and strength.

I don't know that much about them yet, I use them in wiring up control boxes or DIN mounted terminal strips when using stranded wire. They let you clamp and unclamp the "ferruled" wire without damaging the individual strands and allow you to quickly reuse the connection.

There are about 4 different types of the crimp tool, and many different suppliers of the ferrules. I think your subscribers would be interested in making neater connections with all the wiring you have to do.

here is a company that sells them:

They have been hard to find for me. Big box stores don't carry them and the guys at Platt Electric look at me strange when I ask for them. You don't need the wide assortment of them when you are doing a project. usually there are about 4-5 different sizes that you need. The frustrating parts is the color codes on the ferrules don't match the sizes across different vendors. I am also finding, like you, that the robustness of the ferrule is different between vendors. I am still looking for the "best vendor".

there are a bunch of you-tube videos on using them. I think your projects and designs would be enhanced by their use.

Also you could use wire labels.
porta-pack is a brand of wire label books, EZcode and GB books can be found at the big box store for about 8$ a book. You can do a full project with a book. I use them when I hide wires in a DIN wire track so you can easily identify both ends of the wire. It helps with documentation of the system. A spreadsheet helps with you want to describe each wire and circuit and possible end. The roll on to wire 16 AWG and larger. Smaller wires are a bit trickery, folding the label is one way to deal with the small diameter.

I love your videos, you have be very helpful for me to get started with solar power and battery storage system. Thank you.
-kevin
 
I watched a YouTube about them last week, by a auto electrical tech who works on high end audio setups.
For the really big wire going into a socket with a big set screw. he didn't crimp the ferrule.
He put the wire with the ferrule in the socket and used the set screw crimp the ferrule with a big dimple.
That way didn't deform the rest of the ferrule and made it easier to take out and reinstall.
The small ones the crimper, crimps all 4 sides and the ferrule comes out looking squarish.
They come out looking like this.

maxresdefault.jpg
 
I don't know.
Personally for things like this I just do something like this.
I search amazon for the competing products and prioritise the ones with the most reviews and the highest rating.
Then if required I filter out the most expensive and the least expensive.
The tool and ferrules was < $50.00CAD so I didn't overthink it.
 
Back
Top