Molex DuraClik Crimper alternatives

[akowalczyk]

Has anyone had any luck with finding an alternative to the $300 official DuraClik crimp tooling available from Molex?

I like these connectors, and would love to be able to build them into my own projects, but I can't justify getting the real tooling right now, and doing it with pliers is just annoying.

Thanks!

[frozenfrogz]

I bought an Engineer PAD-01 crimping tool set some time ago and am getting very good results for the Molex PicoBlade series.

These could handle any open-barrel style crimp connector I tossed at them, but it is a little fiddly. Since the DuraClik are 2mm pitch compared to the 1.25mm pitch of PicoBlade, my guess would be, that these should be nice to handle. However, there is no ratcheting mechanism to stop you from crushing the barrel crimps and it needs some practice to get it right.

The cheapest I could find the Engineer set at the time was at hobbyking.com. Right now the set is $100. Since getting that crimp tool, I also got some other pliers and wire cutters from Engineer. The quality is superb and prices are decent.

If you have to do a lot of crimping, you might be better off getting the official tool though. The workflow is easier and you get consistent results without having to worry about precise manual skills.

[akowalczyk]

Thanks for the tip, those look perfect! I've used PicoBlades as well for signal lines, just find them to be a bit small for general use.

Good to know those will do JSTs for batteries as well, I somehow always end up pulling them out of the housing