Bdtyktl

This my first attempt at a junction box . I am kind of worried the wires are too short. They are all in the push connectors. Is this safe?

I'm no electrician, but at first glance I would say two things:

1. Ground the box itself. That ensures that there's no chance the box itself can become energized, because if a hot wire ever touched the box, it would trip the breaker. Unlikely situation, but I always do that when I'm working with metal boxes just to have some peace of mind. You should be able to do this with a common ground screw.




2. Plug those open holes unless there are more wires going in there. You can buy little knockout plugs for less than $.50 at most home improvement stores. Open holes into a live electrical box are never a good idea.

In the future, I'd leave a little bit more extra wire in there, but it should function just fine assuming you've used the correct gauge wire for your current rating.

The work is solid with a few exceptions.

Yes, that's too short. You should be leaving 9-12 inches. The legal minimum is 6" past the clamp, or able to reach 3" beyond the finished wall surface. It can seem cluttery, but cluttery is good.

Are you using a book on electrical? The book would tell you this.

You will need to replace all three legs, and you will be better off doing it now, rather than waiting until the drywall is up, you are doing any kind of maintenance, and you are forced to improvise. Remove the old cables carefully and you can reuse them - maybe even for each other.

These push connectors are particularly problematic with short wires, because it is annoying/difficult to wrest the wires out of the push connectors, so people usually just snip them.

Some people get snipper-happy and go out of their way to cut wires as short as they can. They think there are brownie points for that? There is nothing but pain later.

Perhaps you are rushing to spend a big budget on connectors, but I would recommend using wire nuts instead. Not least because you can take apart wire nuts and reassemble them. But even more, because wire nuts produce reliable connections, and push connectors - like any backstab - are notorious for series arcing and failure. At least you are in a metal box, which will contain all but the worst series arcing.

What you've done there is pretty much the worst case scenario in non-maintainability.

I also see where you have knocked out two additional knockouts. You need to fill those with knockout plugs. Those cost about a buck for five. Alternately, if you are expecting more cables to come in, you are painted into a corner with those push connectors.

If the box is getting too crowded with five(?) cables, you can get either box extensions or "mud rings" which provide some additional cubic inches.