''flying earth''

[HawkEye244]

oh, you meant the lugs.

try with new screws. The screws are plated brass and quite soft, so the thread on the screws often goes before the thread on the steel lugs.

If you ever have a screw with a partially stripped thread, throw it far, far away to prevent re-use and future rage.

The brass screws supplied with the face plates have done this to me 3 times, but normal steel ones thread perfectly well in all of them, as you describe.

If I purchased brass electrical screws and had another go do you think they will work, or not?

Some of the face plates now have one silver and one brass, which looks duff if you ask me.

I'll have a go with a bit of nail polish.

 

[HawkEye244]

That is NOT a 35mm deep box in the picture.

Bad practice to put two or more bare earth wires in one sleeve.

It's not easy to confirm if every earth wire is definitely secure, and also it makes fault finding/testing more awkward.

Wires do look a bit on the short side, but still a worthy effort.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll wire them individually then. I did this because it's how I've seen it done in the past. I suppose there's no excuse not to do it properly.

 

[333rocky333]

Some people with T and E on a NEW install, strip one cable really long, then slide about 100mm of sleeving on, double back the earth then slide another 100mm of sleeving on, they then put the doubled over copper bit in the back box terminal, thus still leaving two ends to go in the socket, if on a ring.
Care should always be taken not to qraunch up the copper with your pliers.
On existing sockets I too prefer using insulated G/Y stranded cable. for the link, thus on a ring having 3 earths cores in the socket earth and just 1 earth in the backbox

I like 2mm earth sleeving it fits tighter and joins neater within the T and E outer sheath

 

[JohnW2]

On existing sockets I too prefer using insulated G/Y stranded cable. for the link, thus on a ring having 3 earths cores in the socket earth and just 1 earth in the backbox

Maybe it's just me, but I have sometimes had difficulties trying to properly secure a mixture of solid and stranded conductors in one screw terminal.

Of course, if the socket has two earth terminals, that problem van go away.

Kind Regards, John

 

[sparkwright]

Maybe it's just me, but I have sometimes had difficulties trying to properly secure a mixture of solid and stranded conductors in one screw terminal.

Of course, if the socket has two earth terminals, that problem van go away.

Kind Regards, John

I hate mixing solid and stranded wires myself.

I'd sooner use up 1.5 mm2 bare earth wire from all the off-cuts of 2.5 mm2 T+E than waste single core green and yellow.

 

[John D v2.0]

Bad practice to put two or more bare earth wires in one sleeve.

It's not easy to confirm if every earth wire is definitely secure, and also it makes fault finding/testing more awkward.

On that note my practice before leaving an accessory I've wired is to separately pull each core with a pair of pointy nose pliers to make sure they're mechanically secure. I've had probably 5% where one has moved, usually where 3 cores are in one terminal, and that wouldn't have been caught at (loop) testing stage due to still making good contact at that stage.
It's even possible in a short cable situation to have one core not quite in the terminal and not realise, but that would be picked up by loop testing anyway.
Takes 10 seconds for peace of mind.