How does your team crimp terminals?

[Ether]

Originally Posted by evanperryg

even a good crimp will introduce an amount of resistance into a wire

May I ask, what's your source for this info?

It seems to me that the contact surface area of a good clean crimp is so much greater than the cross-sectional area of the wire that it would actually have less resistance.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

One of my references has been AMP connector site...http://www.te.com/catalog/menu/en/19231
You can search around on the site and find a lot of catalog pages that contain significant info including the correct method to use, the correct tooling for their products and the contact resistance for their connectors. Warning, the site contains a lot of info so you may get caught there for a long while. In one of the catalog pages I found a contact resistance rating for 1/4" blade contacts speced at <2mohms.

[FrankJ]

For me the issue isn't how much resistance there is in a good crimp rather than each crimp you are adding one more place to make a mistake. Or more if you consider the crimp generally involves another element like a spade or screw connection.

[MichaelBick]

Originally Posted by FrankJ

For me the issue isn't how much resistance there is in a good crimp rather than each crimp you are adding one more place to make a mistake. Or more if you consider the crimp generally involves another element like a spade or screw connection.

I find that good crimps are easy to make with a good equipment. All the connections our crimps secure to are also very reliable. We use flanged fork connectors so that there is little chance of wires coming out. This makes for very reliable connections all over. I find that usually students have a lot harder time making reliable solder connections than crimps. Crimps are also faster and can be done without waiting for a iron to heat up. This makes crimps our favorite way of making connections.

[rfolea]

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Automation Direct - a FIRST Sponsor - usually has a coupon in the KOP so you can get free stuff from their catalog.

They have professional crimpers for $69 here

and terminals here.

And their normal prices are way below anything you'll find at McMaster.

They ship same day so even west coast teams get their stuff within a day or two (and shipping is FREE if you spend more than $49 over the coupon).

Look for the Coupon when you get the KOP this year.

[JDL]

I use my trusty Klein 1005 crimp pliers. The team uses the Channellock version. You can get both at the big orange box.

I'd like to get the team a few DN-CT ratchet crimpers from Automation Direct, that's what we use in my panel shop doing industrial control panels. Does end sleeves too which are great for wagos.


Quality terminals go a long way though. T&B sta-kons, Molex/ETC, AMP, Panduit, 3M. Stay away from auto store terminals. The stuff automation direct sells is ok but its not great.

Make sure the kids are orienting the crimps right. I see a lot crimp them sideways and they blow the seam out. Bigger problem with the pliers type crimpers. If you use the uninsulated type with unisulated dies the nub should crimp oposite the seam.

If it does this you did it wrong. Customer wanted to know why one of their outlets was on fire.