atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information B connectors

had a feeling I would get a reaction with this topic..I am a big fan of scotchloks myself, only time I use b-cons is like hal said if I have to connect stranded wire to solid it seems to work well. When I was doing alarm work using stranded wire I would strip first and make a good connection (read wrap wires together) and then crimp a Bean on.

I use an amp picabond still!!

I use both. Depends on what I'm doing. In the old Bell world you stripped the wire when you had 19 gauge, 19 or 22 gauge with 26 or 24, more than 3 wires in a bean (not more than 4). I like the looks of the amp inline connectors, but I've never used them. If I want a small compact splice I use beans, other wise I use scotchloks. I have never had problems with beans using the B presser. I have had high joints in scotchloks that were not properly crimped. Test by the Bell System equated the bean to a solidered connection. According to my old Bell splicing buddies beans were discontinued for two reasons, a good contract with 3M and too many people not using the B presser, not my words theirs.

We use scotchloks also . In our office we refer to B connectors as "rat rubbers" . I have have seen them used to splice two pieces of jumper wire together because the tech was too lazy to go out to his truck for a new of roll cross connect .

Well said, Bill. I normaly carry both UY and B-connectors. Old Bell habit. Still use Amp Picabonds for splicing OSP. Much quicker than URs or UYs. Half-taps are UGs. They do come in handy on the rare occasion.

By the way, I didn't say this, BUT Picabonds splice CAT 5 with no loss shown.

KLD

I always preferred to use mini handcuff connectors myself but carry the the B's as well as UY and UR.

When there are more than 3 wires, out come the B's and I strip them, twist them, nip the top and use a vise grips. Never had a problem. If I want to pull wires out, I use the vise grips to squeeze the sides, slide the wire out and untwist. No one hangs on these, we use the chandeliers for that.

Now that I've gotten more successful I don't reuse the B's, once is enough.

If I use B's most often I strip the wires I like the silicone filled or still solder and tape a lot also.

I use the beanies occasionally, I don't have to splice much. On the subject of alarms, we had one put in our house about 2 years ago. The installer soldered and taped EVERY single connection. The company does not use splices of any kind. I have used the Scotchloks, they work well. I have seen some data runs that were cut too short and spliced in with them too .
The one thing I hate to see is a mess of phone cables taped up with the wrong color codes used. Makes it a pain in the you-know-what to trace anything!
Wirenuts-not for phone either!
Jeff

I have to tell you, one of the most innovative splice connectors I ever used was the AT&T/Lucent/Avaya/Commscope 709SC and SD. I don't know if they are still being sold, but I really liked them. They are in-line and handle a full pair-in and out. Filled (SC) or dry (SD). They can be crimped with fingertip pressure, but it takes a lot. The nice thing is that they were designed to be crimped with needle-nose pliers (the crimp area was arched to allow for the angle of any kind of pliers). They are really hard to mess up.

The only thing that I didn't like was the half-tap feature. You had to break off one of the end caps and replace it with a microscopic replacement cap that allowed a pair to run straight through. Too much work and room for error.

here they are-Thomas and Betts 709 splices.
https://www.tnb.com/ps/pubint/index.cgi?a=cbrands
Am I allowed to say this...you must be getting old since you couldn't remember who makes them now:)