af8 crimp tool tightening?

[coppercone2]

works great, be careful inserting strands. No-nogo gauge reassured me. 4 fails in a row.. bad day

[coppercone2]

bought the go-nogo gauge so I don't waste peoples time with crimp troubleshooting

[coppercone2]

go/no go gauge seems to say the tool is fine. Must have been some user error.. better work under a well lit magnifier this time

No one has seen a crimp tool that passes gauge test but still does not crimp have they?

[coppercone2]

ok, it worked. I guess I must have kept losing wire strands during insertion.

So it seems that its a good tool after all.. just gotta be REALLY careful. Don't know how I managed to screw up 4 crimps in a row.......

with solder and large connectors it hardly matters if you lose a strand, with this thing you gotta be real good.

[Kjelt]

I now also own this tool the af8 and the afm8.
Did you use the correct setting, brand connector and belonging turret?
I never had a failed crimp yet (done 40+)

The tool it self costs $400+ which is reasonable if you take into account that the 1:1 copies from China will set you back over $200.

But why do they sell hundreds of turrets (one for every connector type) each costing over $150 ? I mean the only thing it does is holding the barrel centralized and in the right distance for the crimp.

[coppercone2]

I think what was happening was a single wire was being bent out of place when I was putting on the crimp. It was very fine coaxial cable. Or I was stripping it and cutting off a wire.

I got some portable good magnification equipment to inspect work better since then... you need to just buy a good loupe with lights on it. I find the loupe invaluable now that I finally bought a good one. Its one of those things I guess you just don't think you need it but it opens up a new world.

and yeah I had all the expensive details correct just not my worksmanship.

[Kjelt]

Good it now succeeds. 
I indeed use a stereo microscope to inspect, smallest multiplication is around 4x which is too much for this kind of work.
Bent out wires can be a PITA, you are not allowed to twist the wires but you are allowed to pull/pluck on them to get together.

[coppercone2]

So long it has a built in light the cheapest magnifying glass is OK. I got that thing that has a bunch of lens for measuring different things. needs 4x silver oxide batteries to be any good though and drains batteries quick.

[coppercone2]

Interestingly I think I saw a manufacturer of ferrules RECOMMEND twisting the wires. But that is not a indent crimp.

I did notice though, for some wires, particularly high strand count, twisted won't fit, but strait will. Like for very high strand count test leads. But these crimp tools are expensive in the 2000's range. (heavy gauge high strand count test lead cable connector indent crimp for 50+A)

they don't give you the best information for something that expensive lol

[coppercone2]

oh but for things like tiny molex if you twist the wire I noticed it does not form the 'broom' correctly either. If you leave it like a bundle, you get a equal amount of strands under neath both sides of the folded flap.  If you twist it, all the twist goes under 1 side (single flap) and then the other flap is bent and does not compress any wires.

I assume it should be roughly symmetrical.

If you have a good microscope you can look at the front of the crimp and focus so you see the front of the 'broom' where you are supposed to have like 1mm of stickout. With a strait wire you have 2 roughly equal bundles of wire. If you twist it 1 side will be empty and the other side will be packed. This seems incorrect. Manual of coarse just shows some random drawing not a good picture lol. i don't think those 30 AWG crimps folded crimp were designed the best! Would feel more comfortable with barrel indent crimp here, but its not the connector I want. Because you can do the crimp perfectly but the distribution between the 2 folds is not always perfect. If its like 1 strand it basically not getting anchored at all by the wing if it gets crooked.

For a cable that is basically putting a RNG on success because if you want equal wire strand distribution across both folded wings, then good luck with a 30 AWG wire getting it right 30 times in a row for a DSUB or something 

if I had to make a really precise length cable (thankfully its usually considered bad practice to make it just long enough), then I would be screaming.

IMO if you have to make a connector that is more then 1 single row, get indent barrel crimps for sure, not the folded ones.

[Kjelt]

Yes if you have the right tools for a barrel crimp connector I would always prefer that to the folded versions.

What I am wondering and unsure about is the wire strain relief.
In a folded crimp you have one crimp for the conducting core wire and one for the jacket.
In MIL spec connectors probably the connector itself takes care of the cable strain relief so the individual wires are not strained.

The other aspect is inspection. For the MIL spec closed barrel connectors there is a small hole where you can check if the wire was long enough.
The conducting wire should also be seen 1/64th of an inch before the barrel starts. So not possible to do a visible wirestrain relief crimp.

[tooki]

There are machined contacts that include a strain relief crimp. However, I suspect they’ve been obsolete for a while, as I haven’t seen any modern contact, nor any in the common mil-spec connector series, that use them. I wonder if they caused issues of some sort.

The only similar thing that I’ve seen today are the coaxial contacts, which are an entire coax connector that fits into a contact cavity. Those use a shield crimp, which also acts as strain relief.

[tooki]

But why do they sell hundreds of turrets (one for every connector type) each costing over $150 ? I mean the only thing it does is holding the barrel centralized and in the right distance for the crimp.

Admittedly, that “only thing” is critical to the process.

But like seemingly all crimp tooling, manufacturers just love to sell you another tool (or locator) with some trivial change rather than tell you which existing tool will work fine.

I have a genuine Daniels AFM8 but use it with Chinese clone locators, which are vastly cheaper. Among them is the “universal” locator which works with many larger contacts, but not with tiny ones. I’ve been meaning to make some locators of my own, to get practice with turning things on a lathe. The drawings for all the mil-spec locators and crimp tools are online. (Not the latest revisions, but I doubt anything significant has changed.)

[Kjelt]

I have a genuine Daniels AFM8 but use it with Chinese clone locators, which are vastly cheaper.

Yes I found out and bought one on luck on aliexpress from Jrready and it worked fine.
 

[tooki]

I have a genuine Daniels AFM8 but use it with Chinese clone locators, which are vastly cheaper.

Yes I found out and bought one on luck on aliexpress from Jrready and it worked fine.
 

Jready is the only major Chinese AliExpress vendor of “real” indent crimpers. Iwiss makes a few, but not the fairly complete set (of the three basic tools) that Jready has.

I had one Jready locator which had one bayonet pin too long. I filed it down a bit and then it fit fine. In terms of the precision of the working end of the locators, they seem fine.