Simplex 2099 Wiring Help!

Today I finally wanted to mount my new 2099 pull stations. Looked easy enough to install at first, but the terminals are terrible! It says 18AWG wire is compatible, but when I tried to get the wires in the terminals and tightened them, they kept popping out of them and the terminal design is terrible, it doesn’t hold any of the wires in place.

So what am I supposed to do??? I’m extremely mad because I spent a ton of money on these and now they don’t work??? Who would design something like that, as if they assumed it would be a pain to install? These are the newer 2099’s by the way, manufactured last year. And the terminal design is terrible. Now I have to rewire a bunch of stuff because the wires got all mangled.

Oh and also the terminals were screwed down all the way like they are supposed to be.

this is not legit but if you t tap the wires down to a smaller gauge.

This may or may not be the issue, but are you using a solid or stranded conductor?

Solid 18/2 wire.

[quote] Solid 18/2 wire. [/quote]

I’ve installed quite a few BG-12Ls/LXs so I see where you are coming from. I don’t know if the screw terminals your pull uses has those metal plates under the screws like the BG-12s to clamp down on the conductors. If it does, you need to make sure the screw is tight so it holds the conductor. I would be surprised if it doesn’t have those, but I will help give more advice if it doesn’t.

If you need to re-wire, leave yourself some extra wire at each end so you have some extra to work with. Always good to give it a small tug before you put it in the wall to make sure it stays there when you put it in.

This may seem like an ineffectual piece of advice, but it can make all the difference in the world.

Use a flat-head screwdriver.

I’m guessing based on the terminal design of these stations that you are using a Phillips head driver. These are great for driving in long screws and many other applications, but it can be difficult to really drive home a terminal screw to capture a wire with a Phillips. Part of the Phillips head design is to intentionally limit the amount of torque applied to a screw, to prevent stripping of the head and other damage.

Meanwhile, the design of the flat-head will allow you to apply much more torque to the terminal screw and securely capture the wire.

If it’s not tightening down as you say and it just seems to turn endlessly without getting any tighter it’s possible either the screw or (more likely) the threads on the terminal got stripped. This happened to me with my Wheelock Exceder, one of the plastic (+) terminals stripped when I tried to tighten the metal screw. I went to Lowe’s and bought a set of screw terminals, soldered a jumper wire to the broken terminal on my Exceder, and attached the other end to a terminal and that’s how I wire it up. Obviously no solution for ACTUAl life safety… but for a demonstration system it works fine.
Side note about the wires being too tight: I use 18/2 FPL as well for my system and it’s not as cheap as the 22/4 telephone cable I used to use!! So obviously I try to redo as few runs as possible. So what I do when pulling wires is I make a nice neat loop of 2 or maybe 3 turns at the first device, run the cable, and make another loop at the next device. Pull stations I just tuck the loop into the backbox but for smoke detectors and my ceiling-mount strobes I use a wire staple and zip tie to bundle it right next to the device. In addition to looking oddly satisfying, the loop gives me an extra foot or so of wire so if I ever need to shift the device’s location, or if I’m putting a new device in and damage the wire, I have a little extra for safety.

It actually does get tighter, the wire just doesn’t fit very well. I don’t use FPL, I use thermostat wire, but it’s pretty similar. I think I’ve figured it out now, but I’ll update if anything else comes up.

If the conductors are loose, strip them back a little longer then fold the copper over on itself to make it thicker.

OK, and my point about the FPL was just that I don’t want to waste it (because it’s pricier), and in the long run it is cheaper (and less work) to leave ~1ft extra on both ends of the wire run when you first hook everything up, so if you ever need to re-strip the wires or shift the device over (for whatever reason) and realize there isn’t enough wire, you don’t have to either re-do the entire run or splice it and add a junction box, you just have to uncoil that extra foot of cable.
And yes, 18/2 thermostat wire is what I used too. (for my NACs. Telephone wire was for zones.) It’s very similar and a bit cheaper. When I finally re-did all my wire runs with FPL I was amazed how much easier it is to work with (it doesn’t kink or twist as awkwardly/easily) and also I think it looks way better. Certainly a worthwhile investment at some point when the final positions for most devices have been determined.