5 CLEVER Electrical Tricks Everyone Should Know

here are five clever electrical tips including why  i think you won't mind giving up these tip number   five there is a way better alternative out there  to using these tip number five is to stop using   marettes so these things basically have a little  metal housing on the inside and these are used   to try to connect your wires and the fact is you  just don't know if it's actually making a positive   connection or not so the replacement that is  so much easier to use and so much better is   these guys these are called lever nuts so you  can take a couple of wires like this and let's   grab one of these that does two and if you look  up close here inside there's a couple of inserts   and when you close one of these you can see that  that metal inside there where it's pinching down   and making a positive connection so as i  feed my two wires in here just feed them   both in like that push down the lever and then  with that i've got a nice positive connection   i can visibly see that the levers are engaged  so there's no issues there another great thing   about these is even if you've got a situation  where you've got several wires here i've got   five different ones and i've even got one that's a  much heavier gauge than these 14 gauge wires here   i can still feed all of them in make sure they're  all pushed in lock down the levers and then i can   use these five and if i need to change something  out let's say i need to replace the source for   this one i can pull that one out and then  put a different one in later slide that in   lock it down it's in there snug and i'm good to  go now these kits are pretty inexpensive they're   usually around 20 bucks and the nice thing is they  have all different kinds of connectors there's   lots of pieces in here and you have that peace  of mind of knowing that everything is connected   exactly the way it should be and there's no  guesswork involved tip number four when you need   to splice wires together twisting them is not the  answer if you're trying to fix a wire that's been   cut like this one start by stripping the wires  about an inch and a half or four centimeters deep   exposing the wires inside twist each set of wires  until it resembles one solid wire slide some heat   shrink tubing over one side and we'll come back  to this toward the end of this step starting with   one of the wires create a hook where the rest of  the wire follows parallel to the existing wire   and then bend over the end at 90 degrees like this  now repeat that on the other wire line it up like   you see here and then once you've got the open  ends going through the loops of the opposite piece   then grab those open ends and pull tight you  can see it creates a perfect little knot here   and as you pull apart it's just going to tighten  that knot making a stronger and stronger bond if   you need to you can snip off any excess wires  that are hanging out over the insulated area   slide over the heat shrink tubing and  then melt it a little bit with a lighter   the two wires have now become one again they're  sealed and protected with a good contact signal   and they're not going anywhere this is a super  strong bond now you can give those a good pull   and they're not going to come loose no matter  what tip number three there's no need to replace   an entire cord if just the plug or end has gone  bad we've all seen this before where your cord   seems to break in exactly the wrong spot right  up near the plug fortunately there's a pretty   easy solution to this to start you'll need to  cut the cord where you can get a nice clean end   looking inside we can see that we've got three  wires here we need to expose the three inner wires   so to do this we'll use a sharp blade and make  a small cut or incision at the end of the cord   we can then peel it open and then pull  those wires back to get as much as we need   in this case a couple of inches will do just  fine cut off the excess and then strip about   a half inch of wire on each one we can now get  rid of the old plug and we're going to replace   that with a standard three-prong replacement plug  just like the old one this one has a ground a hot   and a neutral you can just pull the top right  off and then feed the wires in through the back   the colors of the wires inside the cord that  you're fixing may vary in color sometimes they   might actually be black white and green just like  you'd find in an outlet but more often than not   they're using other colors in this case the brown  the blue and the green are pretty traditional and   the brown represents the hot or the line the blue  represents the neutral and the green is ground   the colors of the screws inside the replacement  plug are typically going to be brass   silver and green green is always ground brass is  always hot and silver is always neutral loosen   each of the three screws and then feed the wires  in and tighten them for a good secure connection   if you need to feel free to trim any excess  wire so there's no extra wire hanging out   with the wire securely in place you  can put the top of the plug back in   and then use the three coarse  threaded screws to fasten it in place   the last step is to tighten the clamp on the back  there are two screws to fasten there and once   you've got those tightened down that plug is nice  and secure not going anywhere and as good as new   now these replacement plugs come in both the three  prong and the two prong or non-grounded variety   and they usually cost just about two to five  dollars at the hardware store i'll put some   links in the description below in case you want to  pick one of those up online tip number two is to   always work with the grain when you're working  with screw terminals you've probably heard the   term righty tighty lefty loosey what some people  get confused by is the fact that that refers to   the top of the rotation so on a screw like this  for example on this light switch when you turn   the screw clockwise the top of the screw turns to  the right and that's where the righty tighty lefty   loosey comes into play when you're using a hook  like this ideally you always want the open end of   that hook to be towards the right if you line your  hook up backwards like i've got here where the   opening is on the left then what can happen is as  you tighten it's going to try to open up that hook   and it could slide it right out from underneath  the head of the screw the more you tighten   the more likely it is to push it right out i'm  tightening this one down for example until it's   nice and snug and when it feels like it's all the  way tight and everything's got a good connection   you can see that it's actually popped right  out the sides and i can just pull it away   if on the other hand i choose to go with the grain  by putting the opening on the right side then as   i tighten that down both the screw and the plate  underneath it are going to tend to close that hook   and that's going to create better contact and  a better electrical bond between the wire and   the terminal for this demonstration i used a  pretty loose hook just to show you what could   happen but if you use a tighter hook you're going  to have better results no matter what in fact you   can see there's a little ledge or a little drop  off so that it tends to hold that hook or that   wire captive inside there so these are really  designed to work as best as possible even if you   do it wrong but by doing it right you're going to  get better contact and a better signal every time   this same tip applies even more  so to stranded wires like this one   if you place the wire in the wrong  orientation or against the grain   as you tighten the screw it will tend to push  all of those little strands out and away from   the screw itself making an even poorer connection  when you place it with the grain it's going to   tend to pull those wires along with the tightening  of the screw and make a much better connection   better yet tighten up those threads as much as  you can by twisting them into one solid piece   wrap it around with the grain tighten it and  you'll get a much better connection overall   if you do have to connect a stranded wire like  this to a screw terminal one of the best ways   is to use a u-type or a fork connector with the  stranded wire and then just insert that under   the screw and as promised tip number one is why  i don't think you'll mind giving up these wire   clippers have been around for a very long time  one of the trickiest things about them however   is knowing what size wire you're trying to strip  oftentimes you just don't know and that requires   a bit of guesswork to try to try one and then  the other and see what works and what doesn't   just a few years back i got my first set of these  new style universal wire strippers and these are   pretty awesome for a host of reasons the way these  work is very simple basically it's got some jaws   and it's going to grab both the right side and  the left side and it will pull the right side   away from the left side it will either remove  that sheathing altogether or at least separate   it enough that it's easy to pull off yourself  the crazy thing is this works on any size wire   i can do this on 20 gauge or 18 gauge like  i've got here i can do it on 14 gauge wire   and still not having touched a thing i can  do this on even 10 gauge or even 8 gauge wire   it doesn't care and it doesn't matter what size  wire i'm putting in there now those were all solid   wire but you can see that this actually works  just fine with stranded wire as well the best   part is it doesn't actually cut into the wires  themselves a lot of times when you're using a   sharp blade and you're trying to cut it precisely  you end up cutting some of the wires and that   weakens the signal and gives you less area to make  contact with so whether it's a thicker stranded   wire like we just did or even a really thin and  delicate one like this it can handle it no problem   and if you look close up here you can see that  all of the wires are intact nothing is missing   universal wire strippers typically tend to  come with all of the features that you see   on traditional wire strippers like crimpers in  the handle and a wire cutter now there's one other   huge feature that these universal wire strippers  have that traditional wire strippers can't touch   and that is they can tear the sheathing really  easily off of complex wires let's take a look for   example at this ethernet wire typically to open  this up you're going to have to make a little   slit somewhere and then pull that sheathing back  but with these universal wire strippers place them   in there anywhere you want and it will just break  that right off piece of cake this also works super   well on multi-wire cables like romex here's some  14 2 cable for example that it handles no problem   it even works on 14 3 which is wider than the  jaws themselves but as you can see i can grab   onto it pull it apart and then i can either yank  the rest of that off or just flip it around and   cut that as well remember earlier when we were  trying to replace that plug on that power cord   well those little three cables that are in  there are pretty delicate and we don't want   to cut into those so rather than snipping the  end and then pulling the sheathing back you can   just use some universal wire strippers and it will  pull that outside sheathing off without a problem   then without touching a thing you can  also strip the three small wires inside   as you can see here this is rated for 10 to 24  gauge wire but i found that you can go lower   than that and higher than that and this thing can  handle just about anything without any problem   if you are working with finer wires there  is this little knob here that you can twist   to adjust the delicacy or the pressure with which  it actually pulls those apart these wire strippers   also have a depth stop built in so if for example  you want to take off a half inch off of a whole   bunch of wires you can just set your depth stop to  a half inch push each wire up against it squeeze   the trigger and you'll get consistent results on  every wire now hold on we're not done just yet   there's actually seven more things i want to show  you hopefully you found some cool stuff in there   but what about painters tape i've got seven  clever tips for painters tape that you can   check out right here and i'm pretty sure you're  gonna learn something new in there by the way none   of them involve painting as it turns out so go  ahead and click on that tap on that do your thing

Channel: LRN2DIY

Views: 1,610,306

Keywords: diy, how-to, lrn2diy

Id: 9hlo87E_GdQ

Length: 11min 6sec (666 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 30 2022