On 2010-11-20, Wild_Bill wrote:
I've found that a very good way to expand one's collection of very versatile
and handy tools is to find some of the great bargains available in surplus
used tools.

[ ... ]

Numerous brands of tools are intended for bare, flagged/tabbed U-shaped
contacts, form (3-shaped closures where the ends of the tabs are forced to
point into the center as the crimp is completed.

Right. AMP calls these "Type F"

Many tools for insulated terminal applications form diamond-shaped,
W-shaped, () flattened-round shapes or U-shaped impressions.

AMP does both the diamond-shaped (for the insulation crimp) and
"()" shaped (for the connection crimp).

In the smaller sizes, they alternate by forming one dot, or two
in the "()" area, depending on size -- so you can tell whether the
correct size crimper was used on the terminal. (The terminals are
color-coded to make the size easy to see even if you can't see the
markings in the connection tab.)

[ ... ]

The enclosed-head style of frames o= require the user to insert the terminal
into the opening from the side, and then take the terminal out from the same
side.

Until you get to the larger sizes. AMP uses two sizes of
hydraulic heads for sizes between 8 Ga and 2 Ga, and for sizes between
1-0 and 4-0. These sizes all form the actual size into the insulation
on crimping.

Anyway -- these have a very heavy frame which has a fixed hinge
pin on one side (circlips in grooves), and a removable pin on the other
side (knurled head and spring-loaded ball detent at the other end. The
joining parts of these are like the knuckles of two hands around a
pencil -- something which can handle the rather high crimping forces.
(The pumps for these heads produce 8400 PSI before the release trips.
So if you know the diameter of the pistons you can calculate the actual
forces.) I think that the smaller set has about a 1-1/4" piston (I've
never taken it apart to see), which would be about 3280 pounds of
crimping force, and the larger is closer to 2-1/2" diameter (13,125
pounds force).

Anyway -- this design allows you to open the head after
crimping, to remove the wire and terminal (if the resulting crimped
terminal is too big to pull through the opening, as it often is in those
sizes).

One could see that the F-style crimp tool could fairly easily be modified to
set small, soft rivets, brass grommets or pins, near the edges of materials
(sheetmetal) by a few modifications to the existing jaws, or making a
replacement jaw set.
Jaws could be fabricated which can deform small sections of soft wire into
miniature rivets.

The AMP crimpers for 10 to 12 Ga terminals (yellow) are called
"Heavy head", and have a liner crimp, but an open side.

I must admit that I hate to think of the good AMP crimpers being
re-purposed -- but sometimes this may be the best use. I know of one
"heavy head" which a friend has which has the cycle control ratchet
assembly broken -- making this better used for perhaps setting rivets
than for crimping terminals. (And you might have to disable the
ratchets in others to re-purpose them depending on the intended
purpose.)

Enjoy,
DoN.

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