Using Terminals in Electrical Boxes

Although I am sure there are some people that install HA lighting and forget about it (those lucky few ), it seems a lot of us have to replace switches many times for various reasons. The result, at least for me, is a lot of wear and tear on the wiring in my electrical boxes.

I am trying to come up with a scheme that would use terminals in my electrical boxes to cut down on the wear on the house wiring. It needs to meet code and be safe, but should allow for the easy replacement of switches. I searched on the web and apparently there are some patents out there, but I couldn't find any electrical boxes with terminals built in actually being manufactured. Electrical box replacement is not out of the question, if it is worth the work BTW.

One option I am considering is crimping bullet or spade connectors on pigtails. The pigtails would be wired in using wire nuts but should only need to be done once. Although adding pigtails may take up a lot of space, I might use stranded wire to make them more flexible.

So what are your ideas on this? Has anyone done something similar?

FYI, IMO you should never use solid wire for "crimping" terminals/lugs.

I don't know at what point an electrical connection is no longer considered "permanent", and I'd just guess that interior electrical connections are required to be permanent. *shrug*

beelzerob said:

I don't know at what point an electrical connection is no longer considered "permanent", and I'd just guess that interior electrical connections are required to be permanent. *shrug*

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But is a wire nut permanent? You can have a pigtail on a wirenut connected to a switch. Couldn't you just have wirenut, pigtail, bullet connector, to switch lead. If the pigtail was stranded that would be "more crimpable" too per BSR's comment.

The trick is to get all the wires "out of the box" as possible.

The newer Halo recessed cans have a wire connector preattached to the wires (hot, neutral and ground) which allows up to four wires to be pushed into it. One of the four holes is used by the light itself. Of course the box they attach to the light is plenty big enough to allow ample 'extra' wire to be stuffed into it.

What I'd like to see is a box with a similar 'connector' preattached in the box itself. Small strips in the bottom of the back of the box for hot/neutral/switched leg/traveler/ground/etc. The Romex would enter the box straight with about 1-2" of wire exposed from the sheath. Stripping the wire bare just long enough to push into the connector. To aid in installation, these connectors could be shipped loose to allow for the wires to be installed 'outside the box'. Then the extra wire could be pushed back out of the box and the connector 'snapped' to the box. The trick is to make sure the wires remain straight.

Alternatively, these 'connectors' could be on the top (or bottom) of the box "outside the box" itself with only 'holes' for the switch wires to push into "inside the box". If the connectors were molded onto the box itself permantently I suspect it's possible to argue the wire connections are made "in the box" per code. These would make it nealy impossible to trace the wires since the cables themselves would not be 'in the box'. So you'd have to open the wall to see the cables and their connections/etc.

Each of these connectors would have a place for a pigtail which would be connected to the switch. That way only the length or wire required to attach to the switch is actually stuffed into the box. In theory, I guess that pigtail could be stranded wire.

A challenge is going to have enough flexibility to allow for various configurations - wires from top, wires from bottom, wires from both top and bottom, 3-way, 4-way, etc. Add the potential to need low voltage wires in (or near) the same box and you've really made it difficult to manufacture a product without a bunch of SKU's and options.

I have used in the past push in style terminals like th back of the newer non HA outlets/switches. where you push the wire straight in. Getting the wires out is a problem though, I have had to break these terminals but that did not hurt the wire, once I got the plastic apart the wires just came out. I dont remember who made these but I bought them at home depot, in their electrical isle, they come in 2, 3, 4, 5 hole versions.

These Wago lever-actuated devices are, IMO, better than both wire nuts and the push-in blocks.

Linky

TonyNo said:

These Wago lever-actuated devices are, IMO, better than both wire nuts and the push-in blocks.

Linky

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Friggin awesome. I bought some of the normal push in from Lowes just to look at them, but they are hard to get the wire back out. Those are much better, where can you buy them?

Those are really cool!

Those are quite cool. It's one of those things that once you see it, you think "Why didn't they figure that out a long time ago, it's so obvious". Of course, I'm guessing that such a contraption is going to cost more than your basic wirenut. I LIKE the idea of those, but I like my $$$ more. So I'm also curious where those can be bought, and how much they are.

This site has them and it looks like anyone can register and buy from them. They have all three sizes with the 5 wire being most expensive at $0.584 per unit.

Hmm. Well, there's no doubting it'd make some things easier...for instance connecting up my OnQ switches into the box, since those have stranded, and I DO hate putting a wirenut over stranded wrapped around solid copper.... So this would sure make a nice connection between the solid and stranded...AND be much easier to remove, should the order to move be handed down (not that I expect this, but still).

Of course, for the $4 I've spent, I already have a lifetime supply of wire nuts...

sic0048 said:

This site has them and it loks like anyone can register and buy from them. They have all three sizes with the 5 wire being most expensive at $0.584 per unit.

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I sure would like to have one in hand - hard to picture it being able to accept 12 and all the way down to 28 wire size on the same block. Or maybe I am reading it wrong.

I know about these because I spec'ed them for our products and we have them stocked here. Awesome parts. Yes, they cover that whole range!

TonyNo said:

These Wago lever-actuated devices are, IMO, better than both wire nuts and the push-in blocks.

Linky

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I ended up pulling the trigger and getting a good handful of the 2 and 3 connectors, so that installing my OnQ switches should be even easier (as well as uninstalling them, should the need come).

But I took one of the things and was pulling pretty dang hard trying to open up the lever. Is there some other trick to it? They start off in the lever down/closed position. I didn't want to break or bend anything trying to open it up, but with a fair amount of effort, it hadn't budged. Anyone who has used those things have any tips?