Brian wrote:

If you are going to plaster over the cable again then you need to either
solder or crimp the join and not use screw terminals. Sheath the
individual wires and the overall cable in heatshrink as well.



And what about this discussion, previously held on this very forum?

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/uk....c111a32fa3cee8
/8251a0bec126cf1a?q=crimping+4mm+cable+uk.d-i-y&rnum=1&hl=en#8251a0bec126cf1
a

I'll be honest, guys - I'm getting confused.

Well to quote Whitfield from his guide the the regs: "All joints must be
accessible for inspection and testing unless they are buried in compound
or encapsulated, are between the cold tail and element of a heater such
as a pipe tracer or underfloor heating system, or are made by soldering,
welding, brazing, or compression."

So that limits your choices a little. Crimps remain an allowable
solution in the wiring regs, and personally I have not had any problems
with crimped connections (made with a decent ratchet crimper). That does
not mean however that problems do not occur though. I find that if you
crimp 2.5mm T&E (I use splice connectors that are long enough to let you
get in two crimps per side) you get a mechanically strong joint that can
not be pulled apart, and the metal of the crimp *does* bite into, and
compress the copper.

I now need some safe and reliable method of joining the old ring main cable
to new. I previously used terminal blocks but I don't think they're safe.
Crimping appears to be both a dark art and dangerous. Soldering sounds like
the next best option but does this simply involve a standard soldering iron
+ solder (as we use to make circuit boards)?

If you want to solder, then use a powerful iron with a big bit so you
can heat the joint quickly. Twist the wires together first, tin the bit
of the iron, apply to joint, flow solder into joint, remove solder,
remove iron. Should take about 3 secs per wire. Each wire needs to be
individualy sheathed, and again there needs to be an overall sheath or
container of some sort.



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/