Bill,
From an engineering standpoint, or personal experience, what is your opinion of the mechanical/electrical connection in these? Do you think they're reliable?
I don't dare to say anything about the electrical performance without a suitable power source and a thermal camera.
The mechanical connection appears to be sufficient, but I would have to test it with weights to be sure.
I went to Wagos hompage and dug into the test results from Wago themselves. I picked a curved which shows the temperature rise in a 2.50 mm² wire. This is in between #14 and #12.
(S = solid, F = fine-stranded)
This test was carried out to German standards. The temperature in Germany is always a constant 25°C, at least in the standards.
The maximum temperature in European cables is 70°C. This means that the wire and connector is allowed to experience a temperatur rise of 45°C in Germany.
In the US, I think the ambient temperature is a constant 30°C and as you know American wires are 60, 75 or 90°C. That means that the results should be valid for 75°C wires.
Wago only provide the tested ampacity for metric sizes. I have taken the liberty to calculate in between sizes that better correspond to AWG. (These data are from two different documents. I took the worse values which happened to be for fine stranded.)
1.5 mm² #15, 17.5 Amps, 40 Newtons
(2.0 mm² #14, 21 Amps, 50 Newtons)
2.5 mm² #13, 24 Amps, 60 Newtons
(3.15 mm² #12, 28 Amps, 75 Newtons)
4 mm² #11, 32 Amps, 90 Newtons
If you require that you can use 60°C wires, the allowed temperature rise is just 30°C. This means that the ampacity is significantly lower, but on the other hand it is significantly higher with 90°C wires. (The connectors are rated for 90°C or 105°C.)
(For metric challenged, 10 Newtons is about equal to one kilogram or two pounds)
[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 08-11-2003).]