Any interest in some videos on crimping tools and how to crimp?

[metalphreak]

Over the few years I've been an electronics hobbyist, I've started to amass a collection of various crimping tools and crimp connectors. From experience, I know its quite difficult as a beginner to get your head around all the various types and the tools required. It can be incredibly frustrating to do some of those crimp pins if you don't have the right tools 


Would anyone be interested in a series of videos showing the types of crimps, tools, and how to do it properly?

Things I could cover:

Insulated Crimps
Wire End Ferrules
JST type pins and housing
Dupont pins and housings
3/4pin fan connectors
RJ45 and Cat5/6
Various wire stripping tools

I also have a big hydraulic crimper for up to 70mm^2 cable. I would have to get some spare lugs and cable to demonstrate this though.

[madshaman]

I'd be down with that!

[Kremmen]

[...]
Would anyone be interested in a series of videos showing the types of crimps, tools, and how to do it properly?
[...]

Oh don't bother asking. Do it already.

[metalphreak]

I shall book it in for this weekend then 

Final uni exam on Friday (last unit woohoo).

[EEVblog]

Over the few years I've been an electronics hobbyist, I've started to amass a collection of various crimping tools and crimp connectors. From experience, I know its quite difficult as a beginner to get your head around all the various types and the tools required. It can be incredibly frustrating to do some of those crimp pins if you don't have the right tools 

And that right there is the answer in a nutshell.
To do crimping properly you use the correct crimping tool provided or recommended by the manufacturer, end of story.
Doing a video on how to crimp without using the correct tool for each type would be just met with flame comments that I'm not doing it right, blah blah 

[GeoffS]

I have a number of Molex connectors, the correct Molex crimp tool but I'm still having problems.
Any assistance/guidance would be of great help.

[SeanB]

I know, but some crimp tooling is incredibly expensive, especially if you are going to use turned pins. Even the common Hellerman crimps have tools that are cheap and just about work, and tools that do the right job, but are expensive. Some have interchangeable jaws that can handle multiple types and can do a large range of terminals.

[metalphreak]

Unless you are doing some kind of specialist connector with a specific type of compression crimp or something, there are plenty of cheap or affordable tools to do the job. The Japanese Engineer crimpers can do pretty much any kind of open barrel "wing" type connectors. You have to do the wire crimp and the insulation crimp separately but this is what makes the tool so flexible. For small volumes of crimping that most people here would do, they are more than adequate at doing a professional job. You just need to take a bit more time doing them than the expensive product specific crimpers.

If you are doing thousands of Molex crimps, then the proper tool is worth having, as it does both the wire and insulation crimp with perfect results every time.

I've used my PA-09's to do plenty of JST connectors as well as Molex ones (KK series to be exact). When you start going to the larger automotive style plugs with bigger pins, you'll run into issues. I tried doing a 35pin AMPseal connector with my PA-21s, and the pins were just too big. The crimp around the insulation wasn't perfectly round and it lead to issues getting the wired up pins to sit correctly in the housing. Still worked out ok, and we didn't have the budget for the proper tool just to do 4 connectors.

There's a large list of what they do work with from JST, Molex, AMP etc here: http://www.engineer.jp/en/products/pa09_20applicatn_chart.html


Things like wire end ferrules are applicable to just about any tool that works. As are insulated terminals or open barrel terminals. You can get cheap ratcheting tools for under $20 that do the job well. If you're into RC hobby stuff, JST red connectors are great for inline power connections. Dupont pins and housings for projects make things much neater.

My point really is to show that with a little investment in some rather cheap tools, you can get much nicer professional results without that stigma of thinking you need a $400 tool to do so.

[GeoffS]

The Molex crimper I have is shown in attached picture. Not an expensive item, about $60.
I'm sure that my problem is a lack of practise, it's been a long time since I did this sort of stuff.

I've just ordered a stack more crimp pins from Element 14 to practise with, gives me an excuse to get another Raspberry Pi 

[grenert]

I'd really like to see a video on crimping, too.  I only recently realized I had been crimping standard lugs/spades incorrectly all these years 
I'm sure there is a lot for me and others to learn.  Thanks for the offer!

[mariush]

Well, you guys made me buy a PA-20 from eBay so I guess this thread was worth something )

I was considering buying the official Molex crimper but it's too expensive at around 1000 RON + 24% VAT on Farnell (that works out at 299$ +VAT) for the ratcheting tool because the cheaper 60$ manual one wasn't compatible with larger connectors but it looks like this PA-20 can do them.

Yeah, I'm a complete rookie at crimping but I'm really interested in modifying my power supply cables (add sleeving, change from awg18 to awg16 on some cables etc) and I may need to recrimp connectors.

[M. András]

please tell me not invidually every single wire, complete waste of time and sleeving material. the original ratcheting molex tools are too pricy for only 1 series of their connectors usually, i was looking at the open barrel spade terminals and the crimping tools for them looks like the one used for the molex and the other brands crimp terminals

[mariush]

please tell me not invidually every single wire, complete waste of time and sleeving material. the original ratcheting molex tools are too pricy for only 1 series of their connectors usually, i was looking at the open barrel spade terminals and the crimping tools for them looks like the one used for the molex and the other brands crimp terminals

The Seasonic X-650 I have has some sleeving but you can still see the yellow and red cables, they look like this :



I want to extract each barrel or wire from connector and put sleeve on the cable at least until it goes under the large sleeving that covers the whole cable. So about 10-20cm of sleeving on each wire on the cable. If the colors are still too visible under the large sleeving, I may do the whole length - I can only buy sleeving in 25 meter lengths so I'll buy a lot of sleeving anyway.

The alternative would be to buy about 100 meters of AWG18 wire and replace the original wires with my own.. but wire is actually more expensive than sleeving in small quantities, and I'd also have to buy the actual barrels/connectors and I only found them so far (i admit, i didn't look much) in packs of 60 for about 20$ a pack. So overall, it would be more expensive than just sleeving each cable.

The KM3 revision of the same power supply comes with these cables which look way better:

[M. András]

i never mind the color of the cabling cos i keep the damn door of the pc case closed the overall single sleve trough the invidual wires good for airflow and cable managment i also love that 8way ribbon style wire

[madshaman]

On a side note, anyone willing to do a tutorial on how to make your own high bandwidth RF cables (like DC-26Ghz) N-type and/or SMA, I'd love to be able to do that, they are sooooooo expensive, but I honestly don't even know what I need for success.

[M. András]

i bet you can get the coax only in km lenghts for a few hundred thousand dollars

[madshaman]

Yeah, I know that the shielded cable and connectors *alone* are expensive, but still, would rather roll my own if it's even feasible.