MC Cable question

   / MC Cable question #1  

Westonium

Silver Member
Joined
Oct 27, 2004
Messages
219
Location
Chehalem Mountain area, OR
Tractor
JD 4310
And no, this is not about rap music.

I am putting up lights in our roughly 20x40 hay loft, and am using 3/8" aluminum metal clad 12/2 cable. Everthing is going pretty well EXCEPT for jamming in the connectors that let me attach the cable to electrical boxes.

I have the specal splitter tool for breaking away the armor, so that isn't a problem really. For some reason, for any given cable cut, one side I can easily thread the connector piece in, but the other side just won't budge. It takes me 3 minutes to the one side, but I've spent over and HOUR now on trying to a connector in the opposite end of three different cables with ZERO success.

There MUST be a trick to this and the hardware store guys were no help. There wasn't a REAL electrician there to even ask.

This little seemingly simple problem is keeping me from making any progress. Maybe there is some electrician forum out there I could post this on as well (unless of course someone knows the trick).
 
   / MC Cable question #2  
It would really help a lot to see a picture of the connector you're using.
 
   / MC Cable question #3  
I'm going to assume you're refering to BX cable (regional term?). I've used that for lots of work and haven't had too many problems. Is the product like the attached web site?

Using BX cable
 
   / MC Cable question #4  
Maybe it's the connectors. I've used Halex snap-in connectors for MC cable and they take about 20 seconds apiece to install. They just snap in to a 1/2 inch knockout and then the MC cable gets pushed in the end. Tighten a set screw, and it's done.

Tom
 
 
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