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Scotchlok UG connector - what's wrong?

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  • Member since
    December 2001
  • 1,932 posts
Posted by Stevert on Thursday, March 18, 2010 10:51 AM

 I has a similar problem once, with some wire I got from a surplus house that had thicker insulation (larger outside diameter) than common wire of the same gauge.

  To accommodate it, I'd simply insert a small screwdriver blade into the connector from the side, and give it a twist to slightly spread the connector.  Problem solved!  

Steve

  • Member since
    July 2003
  • From: Sierra Vista, Arizona
  • 13,757 posts
Posted by cacole on Thursday, March 18, 2010 10:31 AM

Wire gauge determines the diameter of the wire itself, with higher numbers being smaller wire.  A 20 gauge wire is slightly smaller than 19 gauge, but the insulation may be thicker.  A 20 gauge solid core wire may be smaller than a 20 gauge stranded wire because of the diffrence in insulation thickness.  Insulation thickness is probably why you are having problems even though the wire gauge is within the acceptable range.

The most obvious solution is to get some Scotchlok connectors for the next larger gauge.

  • Member since
    April 2008
  • 64 posts
Scotchlok UG connector - what's wrong?
Posted by misterconsister on Thursday, March 18, 2010 2:47 AM

I have some Scotchlok UG Tap Connectors that tap into the wire.  I would like to use them for my signal bus which is 20 ga stranded.  The new 20 ga wire (tapee?) fits into the connectors single hole ok but I can't seem to get the 20 ga tapped wire into the channel all the way.  I've seen the demo video and they seem to be using smaller wire.  The product says its for use with 19-26 ga wire though.  I'm using the standard Atlas 20 ga stranded wire.

 Any thoughts on why I can't seem to get the 20 ga wire into the channel?

 Eric 

I'm kinda likin this stuff

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