The resistance test is also pretty important for short circuit currents. If you have a whole bunch of connections all over you want your short circuit fault currents to stay high so that fuses blow immediately instead of cooking and heating up places for a longer time.

The only other test I'd like to see is running high currents through them to see how much they will take. Other than that I do think this is really good information and I use Wago connectors in my house wiring all the time.

Confirms me in my experience: ViD Products are absolutely fine to use. German department store OBI sells the non-levered as their house brand, which should mean their certificates are most definetely not faked. And I had no issues when using those and the levered ones so far.

I still can't wrap my head around why people hate Wagos that much. Yes, they're slightly more expensive compared to some other connection types and yes, if used properly, other stuff like wire nuts can be just as safe. But those are not foolproof and if used improperly, they might cause serious issues. That being said, Wagos are simply foolproof and much more convenient. Nice video, though.

Your style of video making is distinct, clean, and aesthetically pleasing. Writing things out is a great way to fill video space between key points, and it looks really good. Plus it's always relevant because the values/words are related to what you're talking about. And the nice penmanship on the clean white paper is very satisfying, haha. Putting the knockoff connectors on a paper and writing their points is a nice touch!

Thanks for the comparison; I was especially interested in the effective amperage through the connection (short time and long time) compared with what's indicated. Great video!

Some time ago I watched video where Wago connectors were being tested for extremely high amperage and as far as I remember 2,5 mm wire started to loose it's isolation due to heat and started to glow red before even anything happened to Wago connector...

Very accurate testing and rating system. I wish all the brands were available in my area. The point about Wago themselves not being that much more per piece was an excellent conclusion. Absolutely great video!

Thank you for taking the time to research this! I thought your last video was very concise and i had never heard of wago connectors before then so thanks again for that!

Excellent video and thanks for your research and unbiased commentary - it is appreciated

It's rather odd to trust the certificate markings on knock off products, unless there's an online certificate available, which can be fabricated too, but that at least will be something...

Cool. I'll just stick to using genuine Wagos though. They're the industry standard, and no one would ever question your use of them.

Nice! It's always interesting to know how "no brand" products perform as well (since it's so hard to know beforehand). They are often good, but if you are unlucky you may get some crap. In this case, you also don't want to discover that you got a crap product by it starting a fire, haha.

Im from the us and have never seen these connectors until one of your previous videos. these look like a amazing idea compared to wire nuts as far as safety and ease of use. what ive always done with wirenuts though is made sure they actually threaded onto the wire first then wrapped the wire in electrical tape or put heat shrink tubing around it to prevent the fire from backing out of the wirenut

Working with computer systems for years, I definitely see the benefit of WAGO and the better knockoffs over wire nuts for use in many parts of the system when dealing with bare wire connections.

I only ever use this type of connector for low voltage situations. Nice socks. great video 2x👍

7:35 The sudden appearance of the foot made me laugh, you are brilliant, I haven't laughed so much for a while THX :D P.S. Don't worry about comments from people who whine, these tests are needed to let folks know what to use.

I'll definitely be looking at the ViD connectors if I want to shave some price, and some of those slide connectors if I want to get a few bonus points for safety, thanks for the video!

Excellent tests and comparison, dude! Thanks a bunch! 😃 Here in Brazil I never saw those connectors... But online there are some sources... Maybe I try them soon. 😊 Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

A good testament to the VID connectors is that my school uses them. And if I remember correctly they were sold under the Wurth brand.

9:50 the most important thing is: .. the CE - certificate can be given by the company itself, "yup our product is europe compliant" - otherwise they cant be imported or even sold in europe.

Thanks for the heavy lifting in testing this all, nice result!

Awesome content. I love this type od videos 👍 thank you for your channel

I bought some WAGO connectors based on your recommendation. Love these videos!

your videos are so valuable thank you.

These Wagos are EXCELLENT when wiring stranded LED lights/fixtures to solid gauge wire that's wired around the house. They also work very well with applications around the car and motorcycle which I have at least a decade of very good experience using. The only reason I still use wire nuts is cause I purchased a whole bunch at a discount years ago.

i repeated the resistance test of a wago 221 with AWG 16 fine stranded wire and got 1.1mR as a result. my wago knock-off look-alikes came out even better with just under 1mR (voltage drop measured with a UT181A). i removed more insulation so i could measure directly at the connector's entrance, while running 18A through it.

nice one! ive been using multiple knockoffs for a while. never found any with a similar price to wago

The certificates part made me laugh. It's much easier to have CE molded onto knockoffs than it is to get the certification.

Excellent video Scott

big issue with knockoffs is quality control/assurance. They skimp in that area so although they might pass your testing a significant percentage of them (maybe one in a thousand or ten thousand) might be dangerous - which is an unacceptable failure rate for something meant to stop your house from burning down.

I made industrial machine wiring using original WAGO 221 - mixed cable types from 0,8mm2 to 4mm2. Zero problems, excellent reusability (for correction work). Expensive but worth any spent coin.

Thanks! Came just in time, I was looking at the Wago clones just today!

I bought a whole bunch of these types of connectors from aliexpress a few years ago and they were much cheaper (about 1/4) when compared to wago connectors. I have a hole set of wago for mains wiring and such, but for other stuff I often use these convenient alternatives with the nice screw-holes as well.

Maybe I've already written this in the past, but I really like your hand written texts and schemes!

I've come across loose wire nuts several times. Some that I put on, some that I assume an electrician put on due to various aspects of the application like how old it is and knowing that nobody had touched it in years. Seeing some tests of 20 amp rated Wago 221 connectors shrugging off 60 amps while barely warming up is impressive. They're soooooo much easier than wire nuts, especially when connecting 3 or more wires and doubly so when connecting stranded to solid, as is typical with light fixtures. The lever nuts just aren't going to self-loosen, not from any kind of repeated heating and cooling from environment or electric resistance. They also work the first time, no repeated attempts required trying to get stranded and solid or three or four solid wired held just the right way that a wire nut will evenly grab and hold them all. The only 'strike' against the Wago 221 I have is they don't make a 4 hole version! It's like the Holy Hand Grenade scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, slightly modified. Two! Three! Five! When you just need to connect 4 wires but have to try cramming the bulkier 5 hole Wago into the box...

Thank you I learnt a lot from your videos, great information.

Vielen Dank. As a scientist, I really appreciate your methodology and rigor. I think you tested the right things and provided the important data.

I would've liked to see an endurance test, where you see if and by how much holding-strength and Ohm change after ten, twenty and maybe fifty uses.

Thank you very much! As you are displaying oscilloscopes quite a lot, I was reminded that there seems to be very few tutorials on how to use an oscilloscope on KZfaq. (Maybe I just haven’t found them?) Perhaps an idea for a video series? Thanks again!

I'm sure they're all somewhat similar in thia but I'm curious how water resistant they are now. I have a few projects that require rewiring but a lot of them may deal with at least condensation. Great video as always!

i really didn't expect the slide connectors to perform that well

Right away, I'd like to say that you have some nice looking PME on your test bench! We also have one other thing in common - great handwriting! Anyway, I commend you on creating such a useful video. The test criteria you employed is very thorough, but the Resistance Test is definitely the most critical test in your list. Way back in engineering school, I was taught that Power is simply a form of Heat and, as you correctly pointed out, Power (P) is a product of both Current (I) and Resistance (R). Put a much simpler way, Heat increases when electrical conductors (wires) have poor contact with one another. Personally, I've never heard of a house fire that started at a simple connection point, but it IS possible. It is far more likely that a wire may come loose and short to ground - which obviously causes a lot of heat - but that's where your Pull Test comes in, which I see as the second most important test in your list. Regardless, thank you for performing this comprehensive product test and, please, keep up the great work!

thanks for doing this, this is great!

Great coverage.

Thanks a lot for the great video as always! May I ask the wire tool you used? Looks as one from knipex.

I wonder if you would consider doing an additional evaluation on the "push in" wire connectors, represented in the USA largely by Ideal connectors. I actually picked up a pack thinking they were Wago knockoffs, as they look very similar from the outside. Thanks!

Great review/computation Thanks for sharing your experiences with all of us :-)

Very handy review, thanks.

Great video and comparison. OT: I envy your penmanship.

I've used many kinds of connectors. The Chinese ones, real Wagos, the Ideal lever connectors, traditional white terminal strips, set screw wire nuts, Polaris taps, split bolt, etc. If I am trying to make a really good connection, I will go for a terminal strip or a small Polaris tap. If I am just trying to connect things together, I usually go for the Chinese 3 input, 3 outputs per input connector. Have one running at 25 amps that has been there for years, recently took apart that box and it's perfectly fine.

Perfect work is done. Here's like! Thanks!

Would be interesting to see the resistance test in comparison to wago and I don't know if I missed it, how would the clamps perform with fine wires not only solid. Thanks for the Video.

If preferring a superior product over an inferior one is being biassed then I freely admit my guilt.

Interesting video thanks.. What wire stripping tool are you using please?

Excellent, many thanks

What do you feel about shrink wrap ? (Heat treated wire wrap) ?

We also use connectors like the 3M "IDC" connectors in the USA, although rarely. I think you might like those because they require no stripping, but you still have to use a tool. I feel like the common connectors used in Europe are more foolproof and less labor intensive, while the US connectors require skill to use and thus leave more room for error. We always twist the wires first and if you are connecting stranded and solid wire then you have to do it a certain way. I really only ever use 3M wire nuts (which are different than what you tested) unless some wire nuts are supplied with a fixture.

ViD are pretty good, they were pretty good priced, so I tried them, and I'm very happy with them.

great job. i would have given 4 points in the resistance test because it is so important.

I always chuckle when people throw around "you're biased" as if that somehow discredits what you had to say. Literally everyone is biased. If someone claims they are unbiased then that just tells me they lack the self awareness of it. I watch this channel because I want to hear your opinion on things. If I wanted an unbiased comparison I'd read the spec sheets side by side.

Thank you for testing this. It is good to know, but I will still be only using Wago's in my home. It is just an emotional thing. :)

4:41, the 2 grooves on the left connector are the mark showing how much insulation to remove...

Thanks for the Video. I guess I would have needed it six weeks ago, maybe I wouldn't have bought the big ones I did, which do not fit the housing

Great tests, original wago connectors are quite expensive :D

So, these are ok (code approved) to use in USA vs the standard wirenuts? I have some 50 standard 120v 15a receptacles to replace in my fathers house (built 1973) and 'many' have wire nuts in the old metal box to extend the existing wires. Or, should I just leave well enough alone and wire-in replacement receptacles? (ain't broke don't fix-it kinda deal)

The previous video was not bad at all. I think it was loud minority of people with very strong opinions who thought that their opinions were fact. Wire nuts, if used correctly, can get the job done safely, but so can Wagos. Also, some other commenters pointed out that on places like Amazon counterfeit Wagos are sold as real, and it is possible that any negative opinions about build quality might've stemmed from them buying counterfeits instead of real Wagos. This is really the fault of the website they are hosted on (especially Amazon), as it is very hard to tell these days if a product is real or not, especially considering that many reviews are paid and thus not genuine, inflating the overall rating. Hopefully those people learn to have a more open mind in the future.

what would you recommend for a wireless relay/ switch combo? DIY or buy

Bring an American, I am used to using wire caps. I bought some of those connectors and online, (wago knock-offs) and thought they all sucked. I may have to get brand name wago’s to give them a try. Wire caps work very well, but the ability to switch out wires without re-stripping in very select situations would be very nice

Would have been nice if you labeled the amazon links as to which brand each one was. Also, it sucks that the VID ones don't seem to be available on US Amazon.

Good work scotty

Great comparison!

I use the lever kind all the time but I can say that there is not some "best" option between them for all purposes. It depends. I've seen lever nut splices where they magically somehow wiggle and pop off, lending to the idea that their use in general could become a little "too easy" for people over time. If I forcefully tried to remove a wire from the nut without opening the lever, I can do it with some twisting and turning. It's just not magically as solid as taking something like 12 or 14 and literally braiding it together. Wagos could probably stand the test of time but AFAIK empirically they cannot compare to wirenuts which have the actual evidence of doing so in many situations. People who are doing basic residential or light commercial wiring don't need to be too concerned about it.. they just need to make sure their joints are good with whatever product they use. Some facilities have local code which requires them to braid and solder permanent terminations in the boxes, something which the thought behind is not possible to do with a lever nut. Some of the thought behind that could be something like hospitals where engineers have kept it in mind that they want feeds to stay together temporarily maybe even in some drastic situation where an earthquake or other climate disaster has damaged some of the infrastructure. Having said that has anyone ever used wagos in a hospital for anything other than small fixture wiring? Would they let you make all the jbox terminations with them? This is just a random and joking example but I bet someone who is in an extremely unlucky situation where they need to hold onto some long ground wire to keep from falling is going to prefer it was fastened at the other end with a braided wirenut as opposed to a wago. I understand a wago may be tested and rated with all the acclaim but again, it's not hard to go see wirenuts older than you in old plants which are still fine. You can't do that yet with a wago unless you're pretty young. Of all the back and forth about wirenut vs wago I just don't get it when it comes to simply and basic wiring. Who cares. Just don't use scotch tape. People are talking about their preferred product for their electronic light switches lol.

Wirenuts were widely used in the Netherlands, until wago made decent push in wire connectors. But the Dutch wirenuts made by Conex are diffrent. They have decend instruction load and certification (kema dutch version of vde)and there own tools to install them.

I agree with Killer Spud below. Would like to see some high and over current tests. Given the choice I will use a wire nut. But there are enough times that I have run into places where limited space or unhandy locations makes wago's a easier and safer choice because poorly installed wire nuts are a bad deal. So maybe for the inexperienced people they are a better choice. Still maintain a properly installed wire nut to be a better connection.

Das ist super! Danke!

great channel, good video!

Your previous and this video was great

What's the name and brand of that crimping tool. I currently use an automatic one from Stanley but I'm curious about the one you use for testing purposes.

Würth also provides a labeled version of the ViD Connectors, which I am testing now for some month.

I think that at 4:43 the connector on the left (smaller one) has the insulation information provided by that little indentation on the bottom.

At the end of the day name brand wagos aren’t as bad as some people make them out to be (the lever lock that is, the stab in of any brand is garbage). But with properly twisted wires a wire nut is just a better, lower resistance connection than that little bus bar in the wago. I personally only use them for LED lighting fixtures and control wires but that’s just personal preference. Great video bro

Scott there's one thing you are missing in the Certificates. For something to be VDE or UL Listed as the name implied there is a number who certifies such listing that you can consult. Having the logo doesn't mean it's not simply a silkscreen applied without any document that certifies such thing (very common with China manufacturers). Other thing is the similarities between the CE logo and the CE (China Export) logo. So just having CE doesn't mean that it's the CE logo we know for products authorised to be sold in the EU but a China Export logo. Just a search online can show you what I'm saying, KZfaq doesn't allow links now... I'm a European EE currently living in Shenzhen/Hong Kong so I've come around this kind of stuff all days. That and counterfeits from brands as Knipex, Wiha, Wera and Wago for example.

The issue with cheap spring terminal clamps is long term reliability. When there is an intermittent fault in an old installation (here in Germany where Wagos and Fakeos have been around for a long time) it's a good bet someone used those hardware store clamps in a junction box. Even the cheapest screw terminals are more reliable. Never had a genuine Wago fail though, and they have been used here since 1974.

This is a great video. The only bit I would slightly disagree with is the markings part. The only thing they guarantee is that the factory stamped the logo on the product. That's it.

I was just working on a project that had a heat issue in the wiring and connectors (higher than expected current), and Wago nuts saved my bacon. They sell them by the box on Digi-key, and next time I'm using these for power distribution. Just need some 3D-printed mounts. I do have a small kit box of "made in Germany, packaged in the USA" Wago 221 nuts, but since Amazon knockoffs are a minefield and since I can now buy them easily on reputable distributors, I don't buy them on Amazon anymore.

4:43 fairly certain that the indentation at the bottom of the 1-to-1 is the indicator for the wire stripping length?

great vid,i bought the wago copies off amazon and 90% fell to bits,even out of the box when i lifted the handle it fell off,just buy wago original, you get what you pay for

Good Video!

I think the problem might be with North America, since they use half the voltage, they have double the amps.

Never heard of wirenuts before. I've only seen Wago or Lüsterklemmen (google says terminal blocks). How do the latter hold up?

I havent made the jump to wagos yet. Can someone with experiencetell me how they do a house? With wire nuts i can fill my pockets. Whether its 2,3,4, or 5 wires together, the one nut covers it. With Wagos is it a pain to have to keep count of how many of each you need? Or having to have a few dedicated pouch pockets?

very interesting, thanks

I've used wago for my PV system 6mm² ~43A per phase. Holding up just fine. My cable losses at ~60m of 6mm² cable are worse 😇 at the full 25kVA we loose about one kiloWatt between converter and grid meter. 👍

When it came to the UL listing, did you actually look up the number and verify it applies to electrical safety for this specific product's use case? Case and point: most surge protectors you might find today with a MOV and multiple outlets will have a UL listing, but the number only applies to "relocatable taps", not actual "surge suppression", meaning only the outlets expansion, not the MOV, is certified. This means the MOV could be below below UL certification and possibly fail tests where the MOV can catch fire under a large surge, but the outlets themselves pass. It's a real problem.

I have searched Amazon and cannot find the ViD brand wire connectors. Can you help with more information that may point me to the right resource for this brand?

We replaced all the manually made wire splices with Wagos before the plaster were put into place, so we knew everything would be safe. But as a generic rule, I'm Brazilian, here I pay about R$2,89 for a three connection Wago, and, for a wire nut, R$0,09, so, I use wire nuts mainly for led lights where the power draw doesn't justify a Wago connector, and, they'll likely never be serviced shortly.

The CE "certificate" is merely a self-declaration by the manufacturer of conformity with European regulations, which is mandatory for sales to european customers. It is therefore in no way an expression of quality or the like.

I was really hoping for a comparison between all these and wago’s.

In my home I have yet another style of connector, idk if you ever heard of them, but basically they are Wago connectors but they doesn't use a leaver, they use screws that clamp down the wire