electricalforum.nz

I absolutely love bootlaces and think they are a tidy and effective way to make terminations, I've used them a lot in switchboards on your standard stranded TPS (5 strand, 7 strand etc)

Someone informed me the other day that this shouldn't be done

I'm just curious if anyone has any information or documents around this?

I use them on flexible multstrand all the time as well and they had no issue with this but just simply didn't agree with there use on standard stranded cable

Happy to change my ways, I'd just like some hard evidence of this being a bad idea

I'm interested to hear other people's responses but Id be. Surprised if there is any information about the use of bootlace on tps because as far as I know they are only designed for multistranded cable.

If the terminal is a clamp type then standard tps or multistranded can be terminated as is.

If it's a screw type then tps must be twisted and doubled over and if multi stranded must use bootlace to stop screw from breaking strands.

Personally in the situation of multistranded into clamp type terminal I woukd be inclined to use bootlace but I don't think it's mandatory

I woukd never use on tps but I could not imagine anything bad happening just unnecessary as its not required.

On the subject when using mulstranded cable in a shear bolt connector its recommended to use bootlace over gause tape or nothing ( I rang manufacturer and asked them)

I would'nt use a bootlace crimp on a 2.5mm TPS wire in a DB, there is a much better surface area connection with the conductor twisted and folded over than with a bootlace crimp.
Bootlace crimps don't work too well in terminals that are over sized, like an MCB. They can come loose.
I use bootlace crimps daily aswell

JamieP,
Personally I've only ever used these ferrules on what you'd call flexible cables and multi-cores that have really fine wires, that could cause a short-circuit if one of the strands
made it into an adjacent terminal during termination.
This was the whole idea of the boot-lace ferrule back in the day, came from Europe where all of their controls wiring were and are still done in this fashion.
If you're going to use ferrules on TPS type conductors where there are only 5 or 7 conductors, I don't really see any advantage in doing this, as as long as the conductor material is
twisted up as it should be before termination, should not make any difference to the final result.

Cheers,
Mike T.