FUN but REAL - White teeth are nicer than the light grey – the same applies to terminal blocks

Some time after launching 2060 terminal blocks series into the market, customers started to reach out to us asking for lighter shade of insulating sleeve – ideally white one. They expected such a sleeve to better reflect light and minimize the formation of shadows (which can be very useful mainly with applications with white LED – lighting technology).

It was confirmed that customers’ requirements are justified and we decided to change the colour of the terminal block body from light gray to white.

Wago’s management had a justified requirement that this change should be performed as rationally as possible - with minimal material and process costs.
The aggravating circumstance was that a huge amount of light grey plastic granules has been already purchased (logically, to reduce purchase costs). These had to be inevitably used.

The process of finding the ideal solution has begun:
1.First idea was to colour grey granules with white colour before pouring them into the moulding press - the result was disastrous - spotty terminal blocks.
2.Adding lime to granulate brought even worse outcome. Spotted terminal blocks, moreover, were fragile and smudged hands (some employees had even smudged pockets – for now, they only received a reprimand).
3.A very sophisticated idea came from the graphic artists who suggested adding more granules in the RGB colours (red, green, blue) in a strictly exact proportion to achieve the desired white colour. This idea, however, was immediately assessed as materially and procedurally too expensive.
4.Adding milk was just a hopeless idea of our head of cafeteria. This idea was not even tested because of fear of expected unpleasant smell of burned milk.
5.Finally, the project manager (the father of three (sometimes) nice children) came up with an amazing idea. Under the influence of the fresh experience of success when he managed to force his children to wash their teeth in the morning and evening which resulted in their beautiful white teeth – he got convinced that if it went fine with light grey teeth, it would also work with terminal blocks. Moreover, he relied on the fact that he won’t need to yell at employees and that they won’t talk back (hence no risk to be a nervous wreck and no risk of vocal cord injury).

Experiments begun. Selected enthusiastic employees started to brush light grey terminal blocks with toothbrush twice a day (morning and evening) and after not even two weeks they enthusiastically showed their beautiful white terminal blocks - and they were all convinced that the best solution has been found.

The unwanted side-effect was that the terminal block body got extended in the back by 1mm under the pressure of brush. Finally it turned out that it allows larger tolerance in direct inserting of solid conductors with automatic and also manual installation. Moreover, a higher mechanical strength when using the control button is also apparent from this change.

Meanwhile, light grey granules were all used and production purchased white ones already. However, this case shows that unconventional solutions have a place in our lives and we are not afraid of them.

White terminal blocks of course got their new order numbers:

WAGO old version	New version	Description
2060-401/998-404	2060-451/998-404	SMD terminal block, 1-pole, white, pin distance of 4 mm
2060-402/998-404	2060-452/998-404	SMD terminal block, 2- pole, white, pin distance of 4 mm
2060-403/998-404	2060-452/998-404	terminal block, 3- pole, white, pin distance of 4 mm
2060-901	2060-951/028-00	terminal block, 1- pole, white, pin distance of 4 mm
2060-902	2060-952/028-00	terminal block, 2- pole, white, pin distance of 4 mm
2060-903	2060-953/028-00	terminal block, 3- pole, white, pin distance of 4 mm