Installing Insulation Piercing Connectors on Bundled Cable

What the Connector Does Mechanically

Serrated teeth inside the connector body cut through the cable insulation until they make contact with the conductor beneath. The body closes around the puncture so the contact is enclosed, and a sealant or the body geometry keeps water out. The main conductor is never stripped, so the insulation system of the line stays continuous everywhere except inside the sealed connector.

Why Stripping Is the Problem Being Avoided

A stripped tap leaves exposed conductor under a taped or boxed cover. Every one of those is a water ingress point waiting for a wind-driven rain event, and corrosion at a tap point is a high resistance joint that heats. Piercing connectors exist because the stripped alternative ages badly at scale.

Selecting the Series

Connectors are ranged by the cross section of the main conductor and the cross section of the tap. A connector sized for a small tap will not close correctly on a large main and vice versa. The PA, PAL and TTD series cover different combinations - send both conductor sizes when enquiring rather than just the main.

The Shear Head Bolt

The bolt head is designed to shear off at the correct clamping force. This is not a convenience feature: it is how a repeatable contact force is achieved at the top of a pole where nobody is going to use a torque wrench. If the head has not sheared, the connection is not finished.

Common Installation Errors

Reusing a connector that has already been tightened once, seating the cable off-centre in the channel, fitting a connector outside its conductor size range, and leaving the tap conductor unsupported so that its weight loads the connector body. Each of these produces a joint that works on the day and fails in a year.

Working on Live Lines

Piercing connectors are designed for tapping insulated conductors without stripping them, which is why they are associated with live working. Whether a specific tap may be made live is decided by your own network operator's safe working procedure and local regulation, not by the connector.