funky plug-in connectors in new recessed lights

amakarevic

the recessed lights i bought last year came with regular loose three wires that needed to be spliced and capped to wire in and out, if any, the old-fashioned way.

however, the same lights i just bought a few weeks ago came with some funky plug in contraptions that lock the wire pushed in and, to my understanding, there is no way out but cutting the wire. there are four holes in each connector.

Q1: what do you call that connector ?
Q2: any cons to this solution. looks like cheating to me. should i have done away without it, cut them out and splice the wire ?

jbfan

They are called wago's or whatever brand that the light company uses. They have been there for several years and you can either cut them off or use them.

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HouseHelper

Use them. They are a great time saver when installing multiple lights and are a vast improvement over the old push-ins used on receptacles. To remove the 14/12ga wire, just pull while twisting the connector.

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amakarevic

why not then use them universally in all applications instead of splicing wires, which is something i seldom look forward to doing, especially with 4 gauge 12 wires ?

HouseHelper

That's easy: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

But they do work well when you have several grounds or neutral to connect together.

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220/221

They rock!

Carpel tunnel is not good.

jerryh3

I agree. I put 32 recessed lights in my brother's house and they were a huge timesaver.

nap

I fell in love with these things for lighting installs. When you can have hundreds of lights in one install, the time savings can be considerable.

While they are rated for higher current ratings, I tend to relegate them to lighting installs, for now. Most of them are rated high enough to be used in place of wire nuts in most situations.

and as to cost; if you compare a name brand wire not to these, they are not that much different. The time savings make up for the costs from what I can see.

Speedy Petey

I LOVE these things as well.
I also like the quick wire connectors where you can splice two cables to the light and slip them into the two black "clips" AFTER everything is wired up.

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