If you’ve got a Victron Multiplus with ‘these’ spring clamps for the AC in and AC out; they are kind of a pain; but I’ve got a trick that will help you out and that’s exactly what I’m going to cover today in lesson #11 of this Wire Terminals playlist.
These terminals are designed so you can ‘simply’ push wire into them and be done with it. No tightening of the terminals or anything necessary. Unfortunately, with stranded copper wire like we have in most mobile and marine applications, the wire is too flimsy to just push into the terminal.
Most people have found ferrules to be too fat.
We supply ‘pin’ terminals in our wiring kits and those work most of the time, but even still; here’s a tip that will help out no matter what type of wire terminal, if any, you decide to use.
Right above the wire terminal is a little rectangle opening and if you push a small flathead screwdriver in there firmly, it will open the terminal, making putting the wire in there super easy.
If I pull the wire out of the terminal, we can see this line from the spring clamp where it has been secured in place.
Here’s what’s happening inside of the terminal:
- The spring clamp inside of the terminal is always pushing ‘down’.
- Pushing the screwdriver into the terminal lifts the spring clamp up and out of the way
- This makes putting the wire in place easy
- Pulling the screwdriver back out drops the spring clamp onto the wire, securing it in place.
Conclusion
Now I know this wasn’t necessarily a ‘wire terminals’ video, but I still felt it was relevant because even with the right type of terminal; the spring clamp found in these multiplus units are somewhat problematic if you don’t know about the tip I just showed you.
