Crimp Tool Recommendation (again)

laika

laika

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A couple of years ago I made the mistake of asking two questions in one post about crimp tools and the second was somewhat overlooked in the great replies to the first so here's the repeat version :-)

I'm often coming up with the need to crimp various types of connector (today's conundrum: anderson connectors) and am wondering if I should invest in a ratchet tool which I can replace dies on.

Can anyone recommend a good ratchet crimp tool (not the heavy hydraulic kind) which has a very large range of interchangeable dies? I'm thinking up to about £150. If it could do network connectors as well as wire crimps that would be superb but a brief scan seems to indicate that ones for network connectors are entirely separate from the wire kind (even with replaceable dies)
 
I'm still hoping someone will design one that has interchangeable dies for both the varying ferrules and for RJ45/11. Or did someone?
 
Network vs power (red/yellow/blue) are such different jobs you wont get a decent tool to do both.
If you are doing one offs then cheap as chips is ok if you are a master craftsman, otherwise go for a mid range tool
if you are doing 100s then interchangeable ractchet is the mark.
above 1000s then a tool for each die is the way to go.
 
Dougal Tolan said:
Network vs power (red/yellow/blue) are such different jobs you wont get a decent tool to do both.
If you are doing one offs then cheap as chips is ok if you are a master craftsman, otherwise go for a mid range tool
if you are doing 100s then interchangeable ractchet is the mark.
above 1000s then a tool for each die is the way to go.
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I did some crimps (red/blue/yellow) with a cheap B&Q ratchet crimp tool recently, the quality of the crimps was very poor compared to my proper ratchet. If you're DIY'er I would argue that you need a quality tool as you probably wouldn't know what a decent crimp should look like.
 
Yngmar said:
I'm still hoping someone will design one that has interchangeable dies for both the varying ferrules and for RJ45/11. Or did someone?
Click to expand...

Yep that was what I was hoping. After all, principle is the same. crush something between dies. Just needs different dies. But it does seem that there are network crimpers and ferrule crimpers.

This most definitely isn't for one-offs but nor is it for every day. Probably 100s rather than 1000s of crimps in the next couple of years: re-wiring the boat is on my task list. I have a cheap maplin ratchet tool which is worse than one of the very simple crimpers for reds and resolved to get something decent a while back. The interchangeable dies thing was because I'm always running into connectors which need to be crimped (anderson, TNC, pl259) and buying a tool specifically for it seems a waste, but thinking about it, dies for a "quality" tool would probably be more expensive (but take up less space: big issue for me) than a dedicated cheap crimper.

Out of interest, do yacht clubs that other people are members of have shared small tools for one-off jobs?
 
I bought the ratchet and also a hydraulic crimper for main battery connections with various interchangeable dies. £55 from ebay three years ago and it's brilliant, yard borrowed it two years ago when fitting a new terminal on board.
 
laika said:
Yep that was what I was hoping. After all, principle is the same. crush something between dies. Just needs different dies. But it does seem that there are network crimpers and ferrule crimpers.
Click to expand...

I've had a look around after saying this should exist, and eventually found two of that kind. One being a Paladin Tools (now Greenlee) thing which falls in the higher end range (around £35 for each die and there are dozens of dies available) and this thing: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/380969633987?var=650302775161 - which is getting mixed reviews here: http://www.amazon.com/Astro-Pneumatic-9477-Interchangeable-Tool/dp/B0045CUMLQ.
 
Surely RJ45/11 IDP connectors do not require anything like the forces that power cable crimps do, so IMHO it probably makes more sense to have a separate, lower cost, tool for those. No?
 
Alan ashore said:
Surely RJ45/11 IDP connectors do not require anything like the forces that power cable crimps do, so IMHO it probably makes more sense to have a separate, lower cost, tool for those. No?
Click to expand...
Bit early for the pantomime season, but "Oh yes they do".
 
Camelia said:
Bit early for the pantomime season, but "Oh yes they do".
Click to expand...

Whereas the typical cheap crimping tool for spade / bullet / molex / etc connectors is a V-shaped pair of jaws (on the left in the image below), there are loads of cheap network connector crimping tools on the market which have a different arrangement, where the jaws are "closed" (on the right).

rwqlII0.jpg


This "closed" arrangement seems to spread the force, applying it equally and evenly across the connector terminals when the handles are operated.

I have two pairs of these cheap RJ45 / RJ11 crimping tools, and find them perfectly reliable. One may be fractionally better than the other, but with either I could easily fit several network connectors in a day, consistently and reliably, without needing to practice, without any difficulty.

It seems to me this is a suitable degree of reliability for most amateurs and, since you can buy these for £10 from overclock.co.uk, OP shouldn't factor the necessity of crimping RJ45 cables into the cost of the tool he buys for crimping 12v electrical connectors.

You can buy also buy a continuity tester box for RJ45 cables for a few quid on eBay. The only time I can recall having problems was when fitting RJ45 faceplates, which uses a different tool.
 
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