Joe's thread on wire-nuts got me thinking (yes, that's a bad thing). What if we do what the Europeans do and start using terminal strips instead of splicing caps for some applications?

The advantage I see to this is that there is less damage to the wires being spliced (especially the cable in the box) and it's much easier to swap devices like light fixtures in and out. A deeply recessed set-screw (grub screw for those of you in the UK) holds the wires in place.

The blocks I'm talking about look like this:

[Linked Image from panelcomponents.com]

I was wondering also if someone in NEC-land used these to wire in a luminaire instead of splicing caps, would they be violating any codes?

The disadvantage with these terminal blocks is that you can't pigtail a bunch of connectors together. You can only splice two wires together.

So this wouldn't work if you have to join each pigtail of a luminaire to a group of three wires each in the ceiling box. You'll need a splicing cap for that...unless there are special blocks with loop-through functions.

[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 02-14-2003).]

[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 02-14-2003).]