Terminating an IEC

[Gfish]

Forgive a totally newbie question: I need to cut a power cord (IEC) in half and reterminate the ends with male and female 3-prong plugs. Fortunately, the cord a simple design with only four wires. I know how to hook up the black, white, and green wires. I’m not sure about the fourth wire – a thin bare wire that runs along the braided metal shield. Am I correct that this wire is used to ground the shield? If so, should that wire be connected along with the green wire? And at what end(s) of the IEC?

[Speedskater]

It sound's like you already cut the cord. Do you have an Ohm-meter? You could then trace-out the connections to the old plugs.

[mitcheam]

Evening Gfish.
Ignore my ignorance as my main field is more pro audio. But it sounds like you are wanting to put a IEC C13 on the end of a fancy piece of screened power cable.
You generaly see the "drain" wire on screened cables and is purely (as you correctly assumed) to make the screen easier to terminate in a connector without having to bunch the screen.
I hope this is the confirmation you needed.

[DF96]

Silly question this, but how do you connect four wires with three pins? The IEC mains connector does not have a fourth connection, because mains cables are not supposed to be screened.

(Of course, a subsidiary question is what is the point of a screened mains lead when the much longer building wiring will, presumably, not be screened?)

[AndrewT]

I could say "don't introduce complications" because we have already been informed that

the cord a simple design with only four wires.

This is not true.

The simple mains cable has three wires, double insulated.
The more complicated mains cable has two wires, again double insulated.
Any mains cable with more than three wires is very complicated !!!!

[qusp]

Originally Posted by DF96

Silly question this, but how do you connect four wires with three pins? The IEC mains connector does not have a fourth connection, because mains cables are not supposed to be screened.

(Of course, a subsidiary question is what is the point of a screened mains lead when the much longer building wiring will, presumably, not be screened?)

forth wire is terminated at ground to ground the shield, please do this at both ends, do not enter into the directional cable ********. so green and the 4th (drain) wire to safety ground, white to neutral and black to live. grounding the shield at one end is stupid, because it will join the ground wire at the connected end anyway.

[payitforwardeddie]

I would disagree with the above note. I was always taught that you connect the screen to earth (ground) at one end only. The reason? You don't want current flowing through the screen.

[AndrewT]

it depends on the connection method.

If the flow and return use coax then the return must be back through the screen.