What do you mean by pretty standard British?


Andrew Chesters wrote:
patrick j wrote:
Hello

Over the Christmas period I replaced all the pendant lights in my
house. They
all had shades I didn't like and those shades were screwed in to a
lamp
holder which wouldn't take the replacement shades, so I changed the
lamp
holders of course. These new lamp holders are pretty standard
"British" ones
which have been used here in the UK for many years.

In the past when I've been putting in any new electrical fitting
I've always
put some solder on the exposed cable which I'm going to screw into
the
fitting. I've done this when wiring plugs for example.

However with these MK lamp holders it says in the instructions:

Carefully strip the inner cable insulation to expose 10mm of
conductor. If using an existing cable with soldered ends,
they should be trimmed back and re-stripped to expose new
clean conductor. On no account should soldered ends enter
the terminals.

So it looks like MK believe that soldered cable ends are a bad
thing and of
course I did not put solder on the cable ends.

I am sure MK are quite right in their advice but I would be
grateful if
someone would explain to me why soldered cable ends are a bad
thing.



The theory goes that the solder will 'flow' over time and the joint
will
loosen. Once the joint starts to loosen, there will be an increase
in
heat, softening the solder further and a vicious circle ensues.

Personally, I strip slightly more insulation, twist and double back
the
conductor.
Andrew