Crimping electrical connectors... Sheesh... (1 Viewer)

[Grayscale]

I spent about twenty minutes honing a cheap wire stripping crimp tool. I was surprised that the tool's alloy is about as tough as an adjustable wrench, which also had sharp corners worth removing. It took much longer than I thought it would. The result of using a variety of honing stones and silicon carbide paper is a surface free of small burrs and enamel. I'm basically doing sloppy sharpening moves here to refine and kind dull the stripper/cutter. There is no reason that it is that sharp, it digs in, and takes some copper that can't get out of the way. Now, I can strip insulation, and there isn't damage done to the wire itself. It also enhanced the precision of how this tool closes, as I touched the surfaces, with the stones and paper, that were keeping them from closing fully around the wire. It now has a neat feel, and sound as it produces really clean (perpendicular to wire) shearing of plastic, and only minorly denting/bending the copper, very reliable.

This is awesome, as, I keep wire strippers in three locations, and I don't want to invest in good tools for something as one-banana as shearing plastic if I don't have to. Usually skills are worth way more than tools. The rivet on this set is proper, and the blades align fairly reliably if you are using a light grip.

 

[ntsqd]

There are some comments made in this thread that called to mind what a Reference Engineer (no kidding, that was his job title) that I worked with told me about a 18 months long project that he did for Boeing on crimp vs. solder. The conclusion was that either process resulted in a viable, long life connection provided that the operator performed correctly and used the correct tools. The problem with soldering was that it took a skilled person doing the soldering. With crimps the die had to be very specific to the terminal.

Ever notice the color coding on big industrial lugs and crimpers? That is so that the operator uses the correct die on that lug. I've noticed that my Greenlee hex die crimpers leave a number in the crimp. This would tell an Inspector that the lug was crimped with the correct die. The key to longevity with a crimp in a vehicle, my ex-coworker told me, is that the crimp die must compress all of the strands and the lug enough that if you were to cut thru the crimp and then polish that cut that you could not see the outlines of any of the strands, BUT (and on this he was very insistent) the die can not crimp so much that the lug and stands extrude out from the dies. In his experience when a die over-crimped like this it caused an excessive work-hardening of the strands and such a crimp would fail from fatigue in a dramatically shorter time than one correctly crimped.

While we're talking crimpers, recommendations for an MC4 crimper?

 

[e9999]

^ I would not worry too much about which specific crimper brand to get, those are not very complex. I have a Powerwerx one, I think. It's fine. If you already have some other crimpers, you may want to check if they would work, some might, it's the same kind of crimping as many other types of connectors. Not exactly sure, but I vaguely remember thinking that the Powerpoles crimpers would probably do fine. I'll check the next time I dig them out.


added: went to check. Yes, the Powerwerx MC4 dedicated crimper looks very close to my TriCrimp PP crimper, same wing folding, similar final size of crimped barrels, the MC4 crimps may be a bit rounder (less flat) but almost the same. I'm pretty sure I could use the PP crimper for MC4s with no ill effect.

And from experience: when crimping your MC4s, I found that you need to be careful about the length of the exposed wiring, for one of the 2 genders (I think you'd call it the female one (things are confusing nowadays...), but obvious when looking at it) if too long it may prevent full insertion of the other one with the final connectors. Whereas for the other one, it doesn't matter and longer may even be better. And, unfortunately, these dang things are not easily disassembled so you have pretty much only one shot at it.

 

[FJ60Seth]

The 3M TR-490 doesn’t look like anything special but it’s a fantastic crimper for bare metal barrel connectors, I don’t use insulated connectors much but it does a good job on those too. It is stupidly expensive.

TR-490 3M Crimping Ratchet Tool

3M TR-490 Crimping Ratchet Tool is made of hardened steel, works with 22-10 Ga. terminals and connectors, and is available at Waytek Wire.

www.waytekwire.com