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Crimp my style

A project log for MultiBot CNC v2

A low cost 3D printed CNC that can be built with minimal tools yet is capable of great things.

david-tuckerDavid Tucker 01/27/2022 at 04:581 Comment

I have been struggling getting good crimps from my crimp tool so for Christmas I asked for a new crimp tool.  My wife still thinks I'm nuts, but she bought it for me anyway.

My old tool was a Wovier SN-28B, this is using a cast metal pair of jaws that are not well formed.  I have never had much luck with these.  The jaw is so wide that I can't see how far to insert the wire when crimping.  I have resorted to marking the wire with a marker before inserting everything in the crimp tool just to make sure I can get it all lined up.  These are designed for crimps between 2 mm, 2.5 mm and 3 mm wide, however they are marked 0.25, 0.5 and 1mm.

My new tool is a IWISS IWS-3220M crimp.  This uses 4 pieces of EDM cut steel to form the jaws.  That lets the jaws be formed quite precisely. When fully crimped the jaws touch each other everywhere, there is no room for the metal we are crimping to slip out of the jaws. These are designed for 1.0 mm, 1.3 mm, 1.6 mm and 1.9 mm wide connectors. This does not actually overlap with the other set of crimps, although the 1.9 and 2.0 mm holes are very close.

You can see the new set on the left, the jaws are just wide enough to crimp a connector, while the ones on the right are 2x wider than they need to be and it is difficult to see what is going on when your using them.  This is the main problem with them, although the poor registration of the jaws does cause trouble as well.

I decided to run a quick test.  I have some 22 AWG 6 gauge wire, two crimp tools and a box of crimp connectors.  As a small tip, a pair of reading glasses works well as a magnifying glass for looking at small wires. They are annoying because they tend to have a very short focal range, so looking away from the work will give you a headache, but they are not as cumbersome as a desk mounted magnifying glass and they don't need any hands to operate.

My camera was not happy trying to focus in on the wires so these are a bit fuzzy.  But you can see the old crimp on the left and the new on the right, done with the 2mm and 1.9mm holes respectively.  The metal of the crimp that goes around the shield has escaped past the jaw and been bent backwards.  This leads to the small tabs falling off and makes it harder to insert the crimp into the connector housing.  With the new connector the crimp is round with none of this blead and the wires are very strong.

Both crimps are very snug when used with this gauge wire, after crimping the connector gets stuck in the tool and has a small warp to it from being compressed too far.  However using the 2.5 mm hole on my old crimp leads to a crimp that is loose and that can be easily removed from the end of the wire.

I'm happy with this new tool. It is better quality than the older one and much easier to use.  It would have been really handy a month or two ago when I was trying to rewire my machine, however I have a few poor crimps to redo already so it will get used plenty.

Discussions

Paul McClay wrote 01/31/2022 at 15:38 point

Confirm.

Not exactly the same tools, but yes: EDM FTW among cheap generic crimp tools for "dupont" style connectors and smaller.

And, IMO, disable the ratchet -- these aren't the tools that ratchet for good reason.

Sounds like you married well. :)

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