PWM Fragility

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by Guru

We know that PWM cables break easily, but why? What makes them so fragile? And is there a way to just buy new heads instead of entire cables if a cable 'breaks'? We've been through 3 'broken' PWM cables, 2 of which were working properly.

Guru,
There are several types of commercially available PWM cables. They are made with different types of wire with the really thin wires being the more fragile. Unfortunately the small wire size is not taken into consideration by the manufacturer. The types that are available with the red, white and black wires are particularly robust. You can purchase the wire, pins and blocks from Digikey and there is a slightly expensive crimp tool you want to buy. It is made by Molex and the Digikey # is WM9999-ND for about $60. This tool can crimp pins and jacks for virtually any connector with a two crimp design. (crimp over the stripped wire and then crimp over the insulation.)
I would be concerned if you have damaged more than one of the PWM cables though. Someone is being really rough. If you have experienced intermittant connections at the Victor end or the cable and thought your cable was bad, it might be that you had not fully inserted the cable into the Victor. This is a tricky operation and a fully inserted plug will have only 1/8" extending above the Victor body. It takes some experience to get it in so be patient.

[Dave K.]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Guru,
There are several types of commercially available PWM cables. They are made with different types of wire with the really thin wires being the more fragile. Unfortunately the small wire size is not taken into consideration by the manufacturer. The types that are available with the red, white and black wires are particularly robust. You can purchase the wire, pins and blocks from Digikey and there is a slightly expensive crimp tool you want to buy. It is made by Molex and the Digikey # is WM9999-ND for about $60. This tool can crimp pins and jacks for virtually any connector with a two crimp design. (crimp over the stripped wire and then crimp over the insulation.)
I would be concerned if you have damaged more than one of the PWM cables though. Someone is being really rough. If you have experienced intermittant connections at the Victor end or the cable and thought your cable was bad, it might be that you had not fully inserted the cable into the Victor. This is a tricky operation and a fully inserted plug will have only 1/8" extending above the Victor body. It takes some experience to get it in so be patient.

Al,

That's the one I've been using and it does make the terminal to wire crimp just fine, but the insulation gripper takes a little more patience because the terminal's fingers are a bit off axis... but it can be made to work and is certainly cheaper than FCI's $1000 tool.

The Manufacturer's part number for the Molex crimp tool is 63811-1000.

Mouser currently has them for $38, Jameco for $43, and Digikey for $51.

Thanks,

[Guru]

Thank you guys, we had this problem last year, too, but it was probably because of improperly plugged PWM cables. We were thinking of making our own cables and the info you gave us has been greatly appreciated.