On 2011-01-09, Wild_Bill wrote:
[ ... ]
As DoN has suggested, the particular type of crimpers are for (specific)
connector body terminals.. and that generally means that they won't crimp
more popular styles of terminals properly (spade, ring, quick-disconnect
etc).
These are specifically for pins for insertion into connectors,
not spade or ring terminals or quick-disconnects.
At best, they may work with one size of flagged-molex-type terminals, but
probably only for one particular wire size, and one particular brand of
terminal.. then again, the spacing of the flag dies may be significantly
different.
The first of the two actually has dies in it (side by side) for
two different gauges of wire and the appropriate pins.
The two particular style of the crimpers mentioned, are the closed die
types, meaning that they're generally only useful for terminals on the ends
of wires.. not for butt-splicing lengths of wire together (then the crimpers
are trapped on the wire).
Actually -- only the first of the two auctions indicated was of
this sort -- the other opens wide enough for the pin to be removed out
the open side instead of just being pulled back out from where it was
set. But since these were not for butt-splicing anyway, this does not
matter. These were for connector pins -- nothing else.
Then there's the issue of wear from previous use. Some crimpers are
manufactured with adjustable parts, although many are not.
And for most you can get the data sheet giving the dimensions of
go and no-go pin gauges to verify the crimper in hand.
The reason that some high reliability fixed-die, non adjustable crimpers can
crimp terminals to several sizes of wire, is because the actual terminals
are designed for one specific wire size.
And -- of course -- there are the crimpers (like Daniels) for
the machined pins which adjust for a fairly wide range of sizes of wire
for a given pin.
That means that terminals intended for n-gage wire won't be a reliable
connection with a different gage of wire. A different brand of terminals
will likely result in unpredictable/faulty crimp quality.
Certainly. Stick with the right brand terminal.
Of course -- the pre-insulated terminals (ring, fork, spade)
seem to work pretty interchangeably in good quality crimpers. The color
of the insulation tells you which wire size range it is for. In the
most common sizes (and most useful for us), red is 16-22, blue is 18-16,
and yellow is 10-12. The colors re-cycle many times, with the largest
which I have the capability of using being 4-0 -- which requires a
hydraulic crimper head and dies.
There may be alternate uses for some hand crimp tools, as I was suggesting
in a post: Crimping Tools Alternate Uses Hand Crimper 11/20/10
I like to make sure that it can't be useful for its intended
purpose first.
Looking for crimping tools on eBay can be frustrating, since many sellers
don't take the time to include numbers, close-up pics of the dies, or
detailed descriptions.
Of course. Sometimes, you have to be able to recognize the
special ones -- like the "Heavy head" one by AMP for the 10-12 Ga
terminals. Others by AMP (for crimp terminals, not for connector pins)
have the ends of the handles painted to indicate the size (and the
insulated terminal to use with it). Yellow and red are as above. For
whatever reason, the common blue terminal 14-16 Ga has one handle tip
blue, the other green. I've *never* seen an AMP terminal which was
green, so I don't know why that color scheme.
Note that a smaller looking one with yellow handles will be for
the 22-26 Ga wires and terminals -- rather hard to find. Above the
10-12 range, you get into hydraulic crimpers with interchangeable dies
covering four wire sizes -- and requiring *lots* of money if you buy
them new. :-)
When a particular style of crimper is found, it's sometimes useful to search
for other examples of the same type, to see better pics of the dies, or
lower prices.
Absolutely.
Enjoy,
DoN.
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