Affordable crimp tools for small connectors (Dupont, etc.)

[Mr. Scram]

This thread is relevant to my interests.

[vk6zgo]

By the way, since I suspect a lot of folks don't understand what I'm talking about regarding the circular vs. F-type (m-shaped) insulation crimp, here's a great image of it stolen copied borrowed from Matt's Tech Pages: Common Wire-To-Board, Wire-To-Wire Connectors, and Crimp Tools:

(Attachment Link)

The right terminal is a genuine Mini-PV (the real "DuPont" connector) crimped with the correct tool, the middle is a generic terminal crimped with the genuine tool, and the left is a generic terminal crimped with the PA-09. See how on the right two, the insulation crimp forms a tube around the insulation, hugging it without piercing it? That's what we want (for this terminal type). A tool with the F-type (m-shape) insulation crimp jaw forms the mess on the left: the tips of the insulation crimp wings have been pushed up and down, and then pierced into the insulation.

Here's what those terminals look like uncrimped (again, borrowed from the same page):

(Attachment Link)

See how the insulation crimps are not symmetrical? They need the circular insulation jaw.

So what does the terminal with an F-type insulation crimp look like? Here's an AMPMODU MOD IV:
(Attachment Link)

See how the insulation wings are flat and symmetrical? They're intended to be folded into the insulation, not around it.

Great information!

It seems that it isn't just hobbyists that have this problem.
At my previous job, we had some "custom made" UHF transmitters which used this style of connector in the control circuitry.

Amazingly, the manufacturer in the PRC didn't seem to have the right (or even the wrong) crimper, so soldered the pins onto the ends of lengths of "ribbon cable".

This, in itself, would not be a huge problem, but their soldering was abysmal, causing some horrific intermittents!
We didn't have a crimper either, so had to do the same, but we had a better solder station (& might I say, skills!), & removed that source of strife.

A previous employer had a crimper which was capable of the job, but there was just that one for about twelve people, plus it was pretty much worn out!

[pocketscience]

Would love to hear how you got on. Hobbyist here who's sick of mangling Dupont connectors...

[tooki]

I’m still waiting on the new Chinese crimper. Coronavirus has slowed the already-slow cheap shipping.

The locally purchased AMP Ampmodu MOD IV crimper is a different story: it works perfectly for male DuPont crimps. Female is trickier: most cheap DuPont contacts are on the short side, especially the female ones. If I insert them as far forward as possible, they JUST barely make it through undamaged. The gold plated Chinese female dupont contacts I have are a tad longer and work well.

Additionally, by removing a part from the back, I have been able to make it work with some Molex KK/Chinese KF2510-type contacts. (The cheap Chinese Kf2510 get slightly damaged, growing some wings that have to be snipped. Again because they’re very short. Similar cheap contacts bought from a reputable seller work flawlessly on the modded crimper.

It goes without saying that actual TE Connectivity Ampmodu MOD IV contacts crimp flawlessly on it. But that costs a lot more, with both contacts and housings being more expensive.

[coppercone2]

[coppercone2]

you need a high current ohm meter and to do a tug test and use a crimp micrometer to verify this (its not 'looks good').

if you want gas tight verification then you need probably a helium leak detector and high end epoxy, or at the very least pressure gauges. And those are just static tests.

[tooki]

This is for hobby use. Such testing is neither needed nor feasible. With that said, when matched with the right wire size, the crimps from the AMP tool resist a pull test — the strands fail before the crimp. The same can’t be said for the standard SN-28B. We shall see how the new crimper does.

[coppercone2]

they are important if you want to work with energy storage etc

[tooki]

they are important if you want to work with energy storage etc

Dafuck you talking about? We are talking about small connectors, the kind meant as small signal connectors. I’m not using 0.1” data connectors to connect 1000 lithium ion batteries in a battery wall.

Please, dude, if you have nothing useful to contribute to this thread, just leave.

[coppercone2]

unless its being used to measure a voltage

putting it out there before someone thinks its a good idea to run a BMS sense board with shady crimps trying to stick it to musk. any parameter sense basically

there is no mention of anything related to quality other then 'ratchet tends to work better' and 'looks good', probably because the tooling in the factory is better and its blind luck that such a place tends to make better crimps most of the time then someone making riveted together crap in a factory that probably does not have a caliper in it.

I was hoping someone jumps on the grenade and actually tests one of these things properly to at least determine a good brand in some kind of logical manner. Right now its 'saw it on eevblog, people say it looks good, must be good'.

add this to affordable
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mitutoyo-Crimp-height-Outside-Micrometer-0-25mm-0-01mm-Made-in-Japan/274059076975?hash=item3fcf31a56f:g:Y7QAAOSw-uddqwfY

You know, if you get a real molex crimper, and you put the crimp in the wrong wire gauge section, it stills looks totally great when it comes out. It's kind of like a gun, the action can be super smooth, it can make a hole and a bang, the recoil can feel good, but if it does not hit the target its useless.

Or, if its aligned correctly, it could kill your shoulder and finger and feel like you are operating a manual meat grinder, and still hit the target.

[tooki]

Go. Away. You’ve completely and utterly missed the entire point of this thread.

Nothing here is at the level you’re talking about. At this stage, it’s at the “are there any crimpers that don’t mangle the hell out of the contact”, not “do these two visually flawless crimps meet a high standard”.

Moreover, you haven’t read the linked sources, since there have been some semi systematic comparisons.

Anyway, stop pissing in our Cheerios and let us have this discussion at the level we need to have it at. Because there is a 0.0000000000000000000000000000000% chance that the kinds of tests you want will be performed by us, since we have no way to do so.

[coppercone2]

yes people can use 2000$ of equipment to test an amplifier but a 70$ crimp micrometer and some dumbells on a wire is too much

hopefully someone will do it

[tooki]

Nobody cares about your whataboutism.

I don’t have a helium leak detector, as it’s hardly a standard piece of electronics test equipment. I don’t even know where epoxy would come into play, as I’ve never read anything about epoxy even in military crimp standards.

Moreover, suppose someone had all the equipment and know how. Would it matter? When a hobbyist buys contacts on eBay or Ali, there is no guarantee the next order will ship identical contacts, or instead those of another manufacturer whose tolerances are different.

Upshot is, you’re being a pain in the ass, for no discernible reason.

[Ranayna]

I just want to throw in my recent experience with crimping JST-XH connectors.

I saw that Amazon hat two different sets of JST inserts, housings and PCB mount connectors, including a crimp tool, where one set gave the name of the crimper, while the other one did not.
Reading this thread, that SN-28B is not really meant to be used for dupont, i stupidly assumed (yeah, yeah, i know  ) that that one would work for JST.

Well, it doesn't :p
The jaws of the SN-28B are just too wide to be used on the JST connector, the front-part gets squished. Having no experience with crimping, it took me some time, many destroyed crimps, and a couple of videos, to realize what my issue was.

There is another set though, with an unnamed crimper. That one turned out to be a SN-01BM, with a much narrower jaw. This fits the connector as it should, and now knowing more about crimping, i got an adequate crimp on the first try.

[tooki]

Thanks for the report!

The JST contacts are even smaller than DuPont, right?

 I’ve considered getting an -01BM (and/or some of the closely related models — there seem to be at least three models claimed to be for D-sub contacts) to see how they fare.

If you have a set of calipers (Messschieber), could you do me a favor and measure the thickness of the jaws of the -01BM? (Ideally, of the wire crimp and insulation crimp individually.)

[Ranayna]

The total thickness of the jaws is about 4mm.
The jaws are made of two metal plates, looking to be equally thick, so the two crimping areas are about 2mm each.

[tooki]

Thanks!

“About” or measured with calipers?

[knotlogic]

It seems Iwiss offers an SN-01BM under their own brand.  According to their own webpage, the total die thickness is 4 mm.  That may not be true for all SN-01BMs though.  I was just browsing though Aliexpress to get an idea of how the 01/02/03BM compare, and I came across one listing for the SN-01BM that describes it as "for 0.25 - 0.5 mm²".  All other instances I've seen say 0.08 - 0.5 mm².

If anyone's interested, the information I have so far after a quick search is:

SN-01BM   0.08 - 0.5 mm²
SN-02BM   0.08 - 0.5 mm²
SN-03BM   0.08 - 0.14 mm²

Each of these three tools have two crimp positions, and I could not find any number on die thickness in Aliexpress listings.  Also, I do not know what the difference is between the 01 and 02.  Note of course, those numbers may only be valid for the specific listings I was looking at.  I suspect there is a lot of copy-paste going on in the distribution channel, and numbers might be mangled, specific model numbers might be applied to differently sourced units, etc, etc.

[nctnico]

I just want to throw in my recent experience with crimping JST-XH connectors.

There is another set though, with an unnamed crimper. That one turned out to be a SN-01BM, with a much narrower jaw. This fits the connector as it should, and now knowing more about crimping, i got an adequate crimp on the first try.

Another good option for JST XH is the TNI-U TU-190-08.

[Ranayna]

I would say 4mm flat. My cheap calipers showed between 4.01 and 3.99, depending on how hard i pushed It essentially fits beween the prongs of the ratchet tool without overlapping.

Googling for the TNI-U TU-190-08 showed a crimper that looks very similar to the SN-01BM.
Looking further though, i found another interesting set with yet another crimping tool:

https://www.amazon.de/Crimpzange-Dupont-Stecker-Steckverbinder-Crimpkontakten/dp/B07QX51F3B/ref=psdc_2076971031_t4_B01M3RVPMS

I find this interesting, since the tool claims to be able to do both JST and Dupont-Style, and one of the pictures shows that the three positions are quite different. Especially the dupont section looks to be designed as menitioned earlier here, wrapping the strain relief around the cable. The modelnumber PR-3254 seems to be manufacturer spoecific though.

[tooki]

Thanks for the reply!

If you look at the other pictures on the amazon listing, it looks like it’s the same jaws as in the SN-4228B I posted about in the original post. (But with nicer handles.)

If mine ever deigns to arrive, I’ll let you know how it turns out! I also ordered an AliExpress JST XH assortment, as well as a JST SM assortment. So eventually I’ll be able to report on how they work. I also have some genuine Molex KK in both 2.54 and 3.96mm, JST XH, JST VH, JST PH, and Molex SPOX coming from Reichelt.

[knotlogic]

If you look at the other pictures on the amazon listing, it looks like it’s the same jaws as in the SN-4228B I posted about in the original post. (But with nicer handles.)

Did something change with one of the vendors?  The link you posted for the TZ-4228B leads to a tool with 4 crimp positions for me, with the innermost one rounded.  And the Amazon one for the Preciva PR-3254 shows 3.

[tooki]

If you look at the other pictures on the amazon listing, it looks like it’s the same jaws as in the SN-4228B I posted about in the original post. (But with nicer handles.)

Did something change with one of the vendors?  The link you posted for the TZ-4228B leads to a tool with 4 crimp positions for me, with the innermost one rounded.  And the Amazon one for the Preciva PR-3254 shows 3.

Oh! You’re right! Sorry, my mistake. Similar, but not the same.

[Ranayna]

Lol, to make the confusion complete:

https://www.amazon.de/Crimpzange-Crimping-Steckverbinder-Stiftleiste-3-1-5mm%C2%B2/dp/B07VGF34KX/ref=psdc_2076971031_t2_B07QX51F3B

This set claims to contain a SN-28B, but that crimper looks like that SN-4228B that tooki linked.

*sigh* What a can of worms this is 

I have to supress the urge to buy another set 
But i have enough JSTs for now, and no real need for Duponts at the moment...

[Jwillis]

You need one for 16AWG .  Check out  IWISS SN Series . SN-28B is for 28-18 AWG  , SN-48B is for 26-16 AWG
I have the  SN-28B and does a really neat job. Think I paid around $40 for mine.