My uncle told me to always twist stranded wire clockwise before putting it under a screw terminal. I ignored it for years, then had a 20 amp circuit in a garage keep tripping because a wire backed out.

2 comments

2 Comments

That advice goes deeper than just stranded wire. It's about the natural direction of tightening. Most screws on terminals are right-handed threads. Turning the wire clockwise as you push it in makes the strands want to tighten together under the screw head, not splay apart. It's a tiny bit of pre-load that fights vibration and thermal expansion. Ignoring it is like putting a nut on a bolt backwards, it just doesn't seat right.

hugo_coleman284d ago

Watched my buddy rewire a boat trailer light last summer. He just shoved the frayed wires under the terminal and cranked the screw down. Two weeks later, the light died on the highway. We pulled it apart and half the strands had just pushed right out from vibration. He redid it with a proper clockwise twist and it's been solid ever since. That old advice is dead on.