Aluminum wire connections

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Marty Funkhauser

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The other side of aluminum
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electrical apprentice
If you come across an aluminum splice of lets say 5 #12s that you need to take apart for troubleshooting. The connection has an old wire nut on it currently that was probably installed in 1970s when the splice was made. You take the connector off separate the wires and do your testing. Now its time to put the splice back together what do you do?? The Ideal purple wire nuts say on the packaging not to use on aluminum to aluminum connections. Split bolts are usually rated for 2 or 3 wires. The standard wire nut in your pouch is for copper only. Multi tap connectors take up a lot of space in lets say a two gang plastic box. Now what
 
Sounds stupid but... pigtail a piece of copper in there, then cap it off.
makes the purples legal..
 
K8MHZ said:
Although allowed, I have never seen a product that would solder AL well enough to be trusted. If anyone has had good luck soldering AL conductors, I would like to know the details.
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Back when I used to tinker with electronics, tin/lead alloy solder would not stick to aluminum. I’d presume a special alloy would be required.
 
mikeames said:
I agree or split the splice with a CU pigtail in-between? Aside from that Alumiconns are prob the best.
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The nice thing about splicing a piece and capping it off, it doesn’t count on box fill at all since it originates and doesn’t leave the box.
 
LarryFine said:
That's stupid. Do they have any that are?

What if you have two ALs and one CU, or two CUs and one AL? (not counting a pigtail)
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It works because it follows the listing. I agree it’s stupid..
Hence my suggestion above.
 
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