3 Important Questions Answered About Ferrule Blocks
In both residential as well as industrial wiring applications, stranded wire is the most popular choice to make reliable electrical connections. Why? Owing to its beneficial features like superior flexibility, durability, and long flex life, it offers more routing options than the solid wire. For most industrial equipment, hundreds of thousands of connections may be required to automate a task. If one single wire becomes loose or breaks, then there are chances of costly downtime. Thus, each electrical connection is important. While stranded wire flexibility allows easier routing than solid-core wire, its ends tend to splay apart. This makes the connection to the screw connector unpredictable. Is it possible to have a wire that’s stranded in the middle and solid on the ends? It sounds impossible, but actually, it is possible. It is easy to implement this using a ferrule connector. Ferrule blocks find immense applications when terminating stranded flexible wires in circuit breakers and terminal blocks, among others. Would you like to know about them? This post answers important questions about ferrule blocks.
What is Ferrule?
A ferrule is a small deformable metal tube made out of tin-plated copper. By placing this short tube to a wire termination, one essentially gives a stranded conductor to the properties of solid conductors. This helps in enabling a more reliable electrical connection. The best alternative to ferrules would be tinning wires with solder. However, there is a possibility that the soldering process can damage wire insulation. Available in a variety of sizes and colors, they offer unmatched advantages when it comes to stranded wire connections.
Why Use Ferrule Blocks?
As discussed earlier, ferrules are mainly used in a process of a reliable conductor assembly. The first and the foremost task of the ferrule is to protect the individual Litz wires from mechanical effects when connecting to screw terminal blocks and prevent the conductor from splicing. They offer several beneficial features in electromechanical systems in both electrical and mechanical terms, including:
- Improved terminal connection
- Increased, long-term operational safety and contact reliability
- Reliable connection, even with repeated rewiring
- Eliminated cross shorting
- Reduced installation time
- Increased vibration resistance
Ferrules are known for reducing the contact resistance between wire and connectors, and even cut off the oxidation in the strands due to the lack of air space between them.
What Are the Types of Ferrule Blocks?
Ferrules are available in three types as mentioned below:
- Insulated Ferrules: The insulated wire ferrules provide a guide for inserting the wire strand. This will help ensure a minimum bend in constricted spots. The insulation is color-coded, so it is easy to understand if the proper size ferrule has been used.
- Uninsulated Ferrules: Uninsulated ferrules are often called non-shouldered as they are available without the plastic shoulder. These wire ferrules are useful where a shoulder would block an adjacent terminal or when termination space is too tight. These wire ferrule versions are easy to work with, especially in the case of smaller conductors. Uninsulated ferrules without the shoulder can be like threading a needle.
- Twin Wire Ferrules: As the name implies, it is also called as a dual or double wire ferrule. They are mainly used when you need to wire two conductors into a single terminal. This type of wire ferrule provides the same benefits of insulated ferrules but allows the crimping of two wires. In residential wiring, they are handy to connect multiple terminals within lighting controls. Twin ferrules are available in both insulated and uninsulated versions. The insulated version comes in the oval-shaped shoulder for accommodating two conductors including insulation.
Mandatory or not, but using ferrule blocks is a good electrical practice. Whether you’re specifying an electrical device for your company or building something for your customer, ferrule blocks should be part of the electrical conversation. If you are looking for ferrule blocks, then it is important to source them from a reliable and industry-leading supplier like Electronic Expeditors. Being distributors of electro-mechanical and passive electronic components, we provide ferrule blocks in varied configurations. Our inventory features several models of ferrule blocks manufactured by industry brands such as Altech. We also keep reliable and industry-standard ferrules that are CSA approved.
