Crimping Dupont, VH, XH, PH and KF2510

[frogblender]

Has anyone had any luck with non-Engineer(PA-09,PA-20,orPA-21) "dupont-ish" crimpers?

Everyone who's used the "Engineer" crimpers seem to say:   
  1) they are the best ever, and,
  2) everything else is junk.

Alas, I am frugal - Engineer is $40usd;  thus, we have a problem.

Crimping is a **metal-forming** operation.  Repeat:  metal-forming  - the metal is formed;  this involves forming of the metal.    In my limited metal-forming experience:

 1) tool must have proper shape & contour;
 2) tool surface must be super-smooth, so metal can easily slide over the tool
 3) tool must be lubricated, for the same reason.


In sleemanj's picture above, the SN-28B  tool contour looks pretty good - it has the proper "butt cracks" needed to form the metal.  And the jaws seem to align&interlock OK.  So I'm wondering: why it is crap?

I've seen jaw pictures of other ebay $12 ratchet crimpers, and yes, there is a wide variety - many do not have the required buttcracks.  And the ratcheting tools seem to all be the "crimp  insulation and copper both at the same time" variety (unlike the Engineer tool, which requires you to crimp the copper wire, then crimp around the wire's insulation) - they have dual-stage "stepped" jaws, which IMO exponentially increases the machining precision required.... and the manufacturers of $12 ratchet tools are usually not known for precision machining...  and junk results.

But sleemanj's SN-28B *looks* pretty good...  so what's the problem?


If anyone has crap ratchet crimpers that *look* good, but crimp poorly, I'd like to know:

1) is the tool surface rough?  you may need a microscope to find out.  Does fine-sanding help?

2) does lubrication help?  A dab of grease or spot of olive oil can make **huge** difference, when placed right where the metal sliding occurs (near the, umm, buttcrack).   Grab your tool and try some lube!

[TJ232]

Over the years I have used a lot of different types and brands of crimping tools.
If you go out of the over 1k USD tools class,as soon as you try a Enginner one is no way to go back to anyhting else. I'm a long time happy user of the PA-09 and these were probably one of the best 50USD I have spent in my life! 

TIP: Look for genuine! Even better: buy it directly from Japan.

 

[zzattack]

My results with all $20 crimpers have been extremely poor. A seemingly proper $100 knipex that I have for one type of terminal gets the job done quite well, but when I mistakenly ordered a $150 die for the same type of terminal I learned why what appears to be simple piece of metal can be so expensive. I even kept the die.
Lately I've been needing to crimp a number of simple open barrel terminals such as duponts/XH etc., so I was very happy to come across this thread. I'd like to try a TE/AMP die for them based on good past experience, but am having a hard time determining which is the correct one.

The dies I'm looking at are the '58495-2' and '58641-2'.
http://www.te.com/usa-en/compatible-58495-2.html?c=538310
http://www.te.com/usa-en/compatible-58641-2.html?c=538245
Does anyone have experience with those or know which would be the correct one?

[2N3055]

I use Pressmaster.. I threw away noname tools.. now connectors look and work perfectly...
I generally don't buy overpriced tools when simpler tools can do the job.. But, with crimp tools, you have to pay a little more to get good tools.
Not most expensive ones, but not the cheapest either...

[nanofrog]

I use Pressmaster.. I threw away noname tools.. now connectors look and work perfectly...
I generally don't buy overpriced tools when simpler tools can do the job.. But, with crimp tools, you have to pay a little more to get good tools.
Not most expensive ones, but not the cheapest either...

Second hand might be something to consider, especially if it has the name of a terminal manufacturer on it (huge markup). 

FWIW, I've picked up some Panduit (Wezag) and Daniels Manufacturing this way.    If you must buy new, get it with the actual manufacture's label on it. And I also have an Engineer PA-?, which is an excellent value for what you get IMHO. But I still prefer a ratcheting type as I know it's getting sufficient crimping force.