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There is an outlet CRB5362 with side wire and back wire capability with screw-pressure-plate back wiring.

The instruction says: "Tri-drive steel terminal screws. Internal screw-pressure-plate back and side wire capability. Two back wire holes for more wiring flexibility. Convenient back & side wire installation". The sign between "back" and "side" is "&" which mean I guess "and".

In the picture, the black wire is in the side wire location and the red and white wires are in back wire holes. There are three wire colors in the picture for easier discussion. The question is not about the colors but about configuration. I just took the wire pieces what I had. Do not worry about white wire going to hot screw. The outlet in the picture is not really connected to power. You can assume all wires are black.

Do not worry about ground in this question.

Is it OK? There is one more hot screw with side and two back wires. I do not have the option, but is it OK to connect a total of 6 wires to one outlet?

enter image description here

ildar
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5 Answers5

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Wire color aside, if there is a need to have multiple wires connected (sharing power or neutral or even ground), they should be spliced together with an appropriately sized wire nut.

A "pigtail" or single wire from the bundle should then be attached to the outlet.

Of course all the wires should be the correct size for the voltage being carried.

The reason for bundling together with a wire nut is, if there is a failure of the outlet, there will not be power lost to the rest of the wires. There is the elimination of having too many wires on a screw as well.

Now addressing wire color, white wires can be used as hot or switched hot, but must be marked black or red at the last few inches where attached to a device or in a splice

isherwood
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RMDman
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No.

I love @RobertChapin's answer relating this to code. I would not have thought of that. But to add some practical advice to this:

The maker's objective is to provide flexibility. If you like side-wiring, side-wire. If you like back-wiring, back-wire. This isn't a spring-loaded back-stab, so the only reason to use side-wiring is if you're religious about that, and some people are for their own legitimate reasons. This device won't let anyone down. Love it.

It doesn't mean you can do everything at the same time.

My experience has been that putting two wires into a rear-entry device like this can be unreliable. The screw often bears down on one side a little more than the other. If one is solid and one is stranded, or if the gages are different, or even if the manufacturers are different or if one wire is much older than the other, it becomes almost impossible to put the correct clamping force on the thinner wire without damaging the thicker one.

And it's a black art, you can't follow the torque spec -- that guarantees failure.

Not impossible to do it -- but almost. I have stopped trying. It's not worth all cycles of tighten-jiggle-tighten until you are quite certain everything is tight enough, when you can do the job in 10 seconds with 100% confidence using pigtails, and that will look better, be easier to shove into the box and easier to maintain.

And all that is WITHOUT your third wire

To all the above, you are now adding another variable -- the screw is bearing down on the two lower wires through an asymmetrical top wire. How you will ever be confident in any of the connections, I have no idea.

And icing on the cake -- I don't think every junction box needs to be a youtube-worthy work of art but what you've done in your picture -- if I found that in my house --- I would assume it was done by someone with ZERO knowledge, not by someone like you who knows enough to ask. IE it's a good question but it LOOKS super frankenstien.

jay613
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Since your question was edited and is now, "... but is it OK to connect a total of 6 wires to one outlet?

The short answer is NO. While this may be possible to achieve, it would be counter to best practices. It is much better to bundle the wires with a wire nut and connect to the outlet with a pigtail.

Possible? Yes.

OK as a good idea? NO.

RMDman
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I would fall back on NEC 110.12:

Electrical equipment shall be installed in a professional and skillful manner.

Nobody wants to find a receptacle with a dozen wires attached to it. If working with 12 ga solid wire, this becomes a serious difficulty because the wires won't accommodate the receptacle when it's time to put it in the outlet box. This can lead to bent parts, stripped threads, and uneven faceplates.

Robert Chapin
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If you have clamp-type terminals on your outlet, you should be able to connect up to four wires to each side (hot or neutral). That gives you one "line" and three "load" cables. If that's not enough load cables for you, you'll have to pigtail any beyond the 3rd onto either a load or line.

If you have a screw-type terminal, you can only fit one line and one load (unless the outlet also has backstabs (not recommended).

If you have any load cables at all, their ground wires will have to be pigtailed to the line and ground on the outlet.

Huesmann
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