On Sat, 21 Jul 2007 23:21:52 -0400, "Percival P. Cassidy"
wrote:



I must admit to having been horrified the first time I saw a wirenutted
connection. Looked like some real Rube Goldberg affair. What I was used
to seeing for electrical connections was a box made of insulating
material, with firmly attached brass "busbars" with wires inserted into
the holes and held secure by clamping screws.

When done properly, by
twisting the wires together with a pliers and applying the wire nut
with a proper tightness, there is little chance the wire nut will come
off or that the splice will become a high-resistance hot spot.

I have read that the wires must *not* be twisted together first. In fact
I just read a claim that UL approval of wirenuts depends on them making
a secure connection without pretwisting the conductors.

Is your first sentence in your paragraph above a conclusion you
reached from your second sentence, or was it a separate statement you
read?

The seoncd sentence means that the wirenuts must be able to make a
secure connection if the wires are not pretwisted. It does not in
itself doesn't mean that the wires can't also be pretwisted. Or even
that it wouldn't work better if they were pretwitsted.

I only do this stuff once in a while, and sometimes I don't pretwist,
I guess usually when I don't have pliers handy, but I feel more
confidant of the electrical connection when it is pretwisted. Based
on my knowledge of things and materials and touching, I don't know how
it could be otherwise.