What Are Terminal Blocks？

Terminal blocks are modular insulation blocks that hold two or more wires together. Terminal blocks are used by factories to secure and/or terminate wires.

A terminal block, in its most basic form, consists of separate terminals organized in a long strip. Terminal blocks are most useful when connecting wiring and grounding.

Billions of terminal blocks are in use today, and more are getting installed on a daily basis.

Different Uses For Terminal Blocks

Terminal blocks in industrial equipment

Terminal blocks are frequently seen in industrial equipment, like wired support boxes and control boxes. Terminal blocks are often found in some of the following industrial devices.

• Blowers

• Control panels

• Substation

• Energy-efficient lighting (LED)

• LED municipal outdoor and street lighting

• All electrical machinery

• Refrigeration control

• Variable speed/frequency drives

• Electricity distribution anywhere

In addition to the applications in industrial equipment above, there are many other useful things you can do with terminal blocks, and here are some tips:

1. Mast base connection

One of the most helpful uses of a terminal block is at the mast's base. If you are using some terminal jumpers and a larger negative feed wire, you can use one negative feed wire to connect to the bottom of the mast for all of your lights.

In case your mast light goes down, then you could check power at the bottom of the mast, after which you could check continuity on the mast, via the bulb, again back to the bottom of the mast. Indeed, one advantage of the terminal block is having the connections visible and ready for troubleshooting.

2. Install a new electrical panel

When you want to change your circuit breaker panel, you might realize that existing wires are too short to get to the new panel. A solution is to place a well-organized terminal block array at the back of the panel enclosure where the old wires will go so that there is a good chance they will reach.

Next, the new wires are led from the panel to the patch panel. This arrangement is very convenient and organized, and you can connect the new wires to the panel prior to the installation of the panel.

Should there be more than one circuit to be fed from each breaker, you simply run a wire down the panel to the terminal block, combine the two adjacent terminals with a terminal jumper, and then connect both outgoing wires to both terminals of the terminal block.

You could arrange the wires on the terminal block in the order they appear on the panel should you wish to get a little fancier, and so if you lose the code presenting which wires are which, you can identify it with reference to the panel.

3. Install ceiling lights

Another excellent use for a terminal block is in mounting ceiling lights. If you have one incoming wire to power several lights, a terminal block or blocks can be connected to it, and then a terminal block jumper can be used to connect branch wires to each light.

4. Troubleshooting

A broken connection can occur anywhere there is a butt connector, and you cannot troubleshoot it if you don't cut and redo the connector. So you have to repeat this several times, and then the wires may become too short.

However, when you use a terminal block, the terminals are easily accessible and troubleshooting can become faster.

Contact Sun Electric Co., Ltd if you need to purchase terminal blocks, we offer all types of terminal blocks including Pluggable terminal blocks, PCB spring terminal blocks， PCB screw terminal blocks and Barrier Terminal Blocks. We are proud to offer first-class customer service and high-quality products.