Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In ,
Sylvia wrote:
Bob Larter wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In ,
Sylvia wrote:
Crimping the plastic is a waste of time anyway. On the failed lugs
that I crimped, the plastic that covers the insulation has returned
almost to its original shape, even though the tool squashes it pretty
much flat.

Something wrong there. The plastic acts as the cord clamp.

Exactly. It's there for strain relief.


In the example I posted earlier, which has strain relief, it's metal
that's crimped onto the insulator, not plastic.

The standard crimp tool for insulated terminals has parallel jaws, and
those terminals have no provision for the metal part to crimp onto the
insulation. Nor will the insulation fit inside the metal part if you're
using the correct size, or at least with most cables. A very thin wall
type might. But the design calls for all the metal part of the crimp to be
in contact with the conductor.

The proper crimp tool for the small insulated lugs as far as I know has
two crimping sections separated by a gap which is designed to crimp both
the conducting section on to the cable and the plastic on the lug to the
cable insulation at the same time.The cheaper tool which is more common
does one operation at a time (once for the cable crimp and once for the
insulation)I think that sylvia's lugs have a heavier section for copper
to copper and a flimsy copper skirt which continues back inside the
plastic insulation over the cable insulation but I may be wrong.