Two wires to a single ring terminal?

[SeaSloth]

What is the ABYC approved method for connecting multiple wires to a single terminal post. Some of the ring and spade connections on my boat have two wires crimped into a single terminal. Some of these are broken and I need to replace them.

I see that Ancor makes a step down butt connectoer that can take a large wire or two wires in a single barrel to step it to 1 wire. Can I use their ring terminals the same way? Jut go with a size larger to accomodate the two wires?

[Tellie]

Curious as to what the two wires are for. It is not uncommon to see two wires landed at the same terminal in some cases, but could be wrong in others.

[SeaSloth]

In this case it will be the green ground wires connecting to the outlet in the 120V system. The PO actually did this with the hot and neutral wires too but Im going to convert those to use the load and line terminals when I can.

[wingless]

My review of ABYC did not locate a prohibition against inserting multiple conductors into a single crimp barrel.

My expectation is that setup would not pass the ABYC pull force requirement.

My recommendation is to terminate each conductor w/ the correct size terminal.

Use a buss bar to permit connecting multiple wires.

[Stumble]

Sea,

I can't point to the rule, but I would be shocked it ABYC allowed this. It is poor practice because you can't confirm that any given wire has enough contact.

[Cheechako]

I dont remember there being any prohibition of using two wires in one terminal in ABYC... going from memory... provided the other requirements are met.

[Scott Berg]

After a quick look E11 looks silent on this. The only time I do this is when jumping the light circuits or grounds on engine panel meters (using female spade slide over connectors). With high voltage I'd use dedicated ring or captive spade terminals (one for each wire) of the correct size. This works fine when connecting the grounding wires (green) of "duplex convenience outlets" and I do it darn near every day. I think the 6# pull test would probably fail much more often with multiple conductors and the connectors really aren't designed for that when they crimp. At CBW our mantra is: "If you can't find the time to do the job right when will you ever find the time to do the job over?"

Scott Berg
CBW
ABYC Master Tech (for what it's worth <grin>

[sailvayu]

Technically there is nothing wrong with putting 2 wires into the same crimp connector. The problem is the crimps with the nylon insulator. It is near impossible to get the wire insulation of both wires into the crimp insulator so one ends up being all wire inside and needs to be stripped back more to be fully inserted. You could use a heat shrink to cover that but if possible it just makes more sense to use 2 crimp connectors with one turned over so the barrels are opposite each other.

[Maine Sail]

Originally Posted by Scott Berg

After a quick look E11 looks silent on this. The only time I do this is when jumping the light circuits or grounds on engine panel meters (using female spade slide over connectors). With high voltage I'd use dedicated ring or captive spade terminals (one for each wire) of the correct size. This works fine when connecting the grounding wires (green) of "duplex convenience outlets" and I do it darn near every day. I think the 6# pull test would probably fail much more often with multiple conductors and the connectors really aren't designed for that when they crimp. At CBW our mantra is: "If you can't find the time to do the job right when will you ever find the time to do the job over?"

Scott Berg
CBW
ABYC Master Tech (for what it's worth <grin>

It is covered in E-11...


ABYC E-11

"11.14.6.10.1
Multiple conductors may be swaged or crimped into a terminal provided that:

11.14.6.10.1.1 The combined Circular Millimeters of the conductors does not exceed the Circular Millimeter capacity of the terminal and

11.14.6.10.1.2 The connection is tested in accordance with E-11.14.5.3 pulling on the smallest conductor according to its rating in TABLE XV."

[Scott Berg]

Thanks! I missed ...14.10! Was skimming through the "Webstir" version; just confirmed this in the hard copy. BTW, I think the previous comment about insulation blocking a good crimp is bang on. I still wouldn't do it on a customer's boat in the same way I don't like 4 terminals on a single post. Meeting the minimum requirements of a code isn't always engineering best practices (but you already know that)...

SB

[Dsanduril]

Originally Posted by SeaSloth

In this case it will be the green ground wires connecting to the outlet in the 120V system. The PO actually did this with the hot and neutral wires too but Im going to convert those to use the load and line terminals when I can.

Connecting the two wires into a single crimped terminal may actually be a code requirement for the PE wire. If the two wires are connected as a daisy-chain, then they must be crimped together into the same terminal. Otherwise, it would be possible to lift the ring that goes to the PE side and all of the downstream daisy-chained items would be left without PE protection. By crimping both wires into a single terminal, even if you lift the terminal off the device (receptacle, switch, whatever) the PE daisy-chain will remain intact.

Since it is allowed by ABYC (subject to pull-out test, etc.) and since not breaking a daisy-chain of PE protection is a requirement of nearly every electrical code, I would recommend actually maintaining the dual-crimp connection. And, since it is PE, you don't have to worry quite so much about insulation.

[SeaSloth]

Thank you all for your responses.

I like Dsanduril's idea of making sure the ground is still connected for the downstream outlets if one of the rings were to lift off. In my case I will probably be using captive spade terminals.

I bought some Ancor 14 gauge triplex wire and a few Ancor 10-12 gauge double crimp ring terminals so I could test the pull out strength using two wires into a single terminal.

Hopefully the pictures I uploaded are coming through. I crimped the black and white together with my Pro'sKit double crimper and tied the green to the ring. I tested for 35lbs pull on from the green to the black/white. I also tested a 35lb pull splitting the black and white in the connector. It held up well. It didn't hold up to a single pull either. I had to lift each multiple times to get the pictures.

If I have time later I may test to see the max weight they can hold before failure.

I held the weight up by hand while my wife took the pictures. I didn't realize how heavy 35lbs really feels since I only use them for curls. I'm pretty impressed by the how well the crimps hold.

Thanks again for your help.