What's the difference between

[Beefer]

a 'terminal block', and a 'busbar'? It's one of those things that I'm not sure which is applied in which circumstance.

 

[jlinder]

Re: What's the difference between

On a terminal block you can connect 2 wires together electrically, each wire being secured under a screw. You often have a number of these screw pairs together on a single strip. Think of pairs of screw terminals all held together on a single piece of plastic or some form of insulator. The terminal strip is used as a single space where a lot of wires are connected to different devices, like wiring up different switches and meters.

On a busbar all the wires are connected together electrically. Think of a metal strip (typically somewhat thick strip) with tapped holes where you can put a lot of screws in. Think of a ground bus where you can connect all the ground wires on your electrical panel to go back to the negative of the battery.

 

[Beefer]

Re: What's the difference between

So a busbar would be a central point for an electrical current, ie a ground. Whereas a terminal block is sort of a fancy way of connecting two wires?

 

[jlinder]

Re: What's the difference between

Kind of. Think of how you would run wires to the electrical panel. If you have a bunch of wires going to the various switches and meters you would not want to run the wiring direct from the switches to the various devices. You would use a terminal strip to run each wire in the wiring harness to, then from the terminal strip run another wire to the electrical panel. This keeps the wiring neat, lets you work on the devices easily, and you don't have to worry about a wiring harness wire going all the way to the device and breaking off when you were working on it.

On the other hand, if you have a bunch of wires going to a common connection you use a buss bar. This would typically be the connections from the battery to the electrical panel. It can be the ground buss, or even the 12v buss. Think of the circuit breaker box in you house. The power comes in, goes through a main breaker (the big one), then inside the box there is a buss bar (w actually) that the individual circuit breakers snap onto. This is the power distribution buss in the box.

If you go to your local home depot and look at one you will see the 2 busses for the power distribution (240v), and a buss bar for connecting the grounds and neutrals.

Does that help?

 

[Silvertip]

Re: What's the difference between

Google the term "barrier strip" or "terminal strip". Then do the same for "buss bar". Or you can simply remove the cover of the electrical panel in your house. KEEP YOUR KIDS AWAY IF YOU HAVE ANY. All of the white wires in that panel are connected to a "buss bar" (called the ground buss).

 

[Don S]

Re: What's the difference between