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Ratchet Crimping Tools, £2


Paul

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I redid some wiring in the van yesterday replacing some I did a while ago with cheap wilko type crimpers and I have to say these were very good, floating jaws, adjustable ratchet, high carbon steel body. Very impressed for £2. Certainly a much better job.

Looking at the IWiss SN28's they look identical, even down to the ratchet adjustment and shape of the grips. I would guess the IWiss are a direct copy of these. 

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For average DIY use I have had a cheap ratchet crimper that I have used for years and I cant fault them, I have often found the cheaper option has usually more than suited my needs.  

If I needed a tool I intended to use for commercial purposes or more often than one off jobs I would probably spend more money on it.  

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1 hour ago, dnks34 said:

For average DIY use I have had a cheap ratchet crimper that I have used for years and I cant fault them, I have often found the cheaper option has usually more than suited my needs.  

Absolutely. For £2 you haven't got to use this one much to get your money's worth. In fact it's worth £2 for the connectors alone.

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Bought a couple of these, at £2 for all those crimps it is well worth it. The quality is better than those you can buy from some auto and diy stores. The crimp tool, as yet untested, but looks better quality than the ratchet one I have been using for the last 20 odd years so. I will make a few test wires and give a good pull/destructive test. I would say that they will pass with flying colours. 
Most poor crimps are because people use the wrong size for the cable they are using.

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This is what you get for your money. Note the number of other tools the manufacturer produce. Amazon sell these for just under £20 but have been priced around £40. 
The cancer charity shop has a pile of these near the till and told me they have a lot more out the back, so if you can’t see any ask, they may still have some and not had time to restock the shop. There was a pile of about 40 on Saturday with ‘lots more out the back’.

 

Colin :default_drinks:

N.B. Just to add, these could be a factory quality control reject purely for the printing on the outer packaging.

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Well they look solid enough. I think it's also great that these have ended up with a worthy charity. It's the kind of thing that we see at a local auction which then end up at a car boot or on Ebay.

I buy quite a few cheap Chinese tools and the main problem if there is one, is lubrication. They often use thick grease and not much of it. A strip down, clean and re-apply decent lubrication is the way to go for a longer life, as in so many things.:default_norty:

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For certain applications, for instance, fire systems, security, defence and offshore works crimping tools have to be certified as to being in tolerance in the same way as multimetres, sound metres etc have to have calibration certificates.

 

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I wasn't suggesting anyone use them to rewire the Ark Royal, just giving a heads up to those on here that do their own DIY, these are far superior to the flat type sold by Halfrauds, Wilko et al and all for £2 which goes to a really worthy cause.

I'm sorry they are not the best brand or military grade, I'll reserve future recommendations to Navy approved items only. 

 

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Pity! I'm in Essex (tier 2) and going nowhere! Partly because of the virus, but mainly because I'm caring for my 92 year old landlady. I think I'll buy the Amazon one.

A question for those who have used this tool. What is the finest (Thinnest, not best) wire that can be joined in this way?

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I know that this query will cause questions to be asked for which I have no answer, but here goes anyway.

I am going to need to make joins in some very thin wires. I don't know yet how thin. 

The pieces of equipment I propose to play with are, a reversing camera and a rear facing dashcam. Both units need the wires to be fed through some auto conduit, which whilst having roon for the wires, there is not enough space for the fittings to be pulled through.

The solution I can see is to cut the wires to remove the fitting, feed the wires through, then rejoin the wires . I have already purchased the rear dashcam but not yet the reversing camera.

So, Those are the wires that I need to cut and re-join. Any ideas?

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put the heat shrink on one wire, a larger piece on the bundle of wires well back from the heat of the join, solder the individual wires and heat shrink each one, then bring the larger size heat shrink along the wire and place that over the individual heat shrinks, you may want to space out the cuts on the individual wires over several inches so the joints are staggered., but seal the whole with a bigger heat shrink tube to replace the outer sheath of the camera wires.

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What Grendel said.......

When the wire gets very fine/thin crimps don't always grip it too well. 

Although there are smaller heat-shrink crimp connecters, white in colour that do a pretty good job, I am not sure they are generally available. 

When using crimps I always use a heat shrink version whenever possible, it both seals the joint from moisture and adds strength to the join.

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29 minutes ago, ranworthbreeze said:

If you look on facebook there is a product that incorporates heatsrink tubing and a means of soldering the wires together, all that is needed is a heat source to shrink the tubing and melt solder (on the advert they use a candle as the heat source).

Regards

Alan

I find the low temperature melting point of the solder in those as my main issue with them, a bad joint will get warm, and would melt that solder right out of there, making that bad joint worse, this is generally why solder joints are avoided in high current applications, however in this instance we are talking instrument wiring, so my choice would still be normal solder and seperate heat shrink.

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Hi AS Grendel said solder then heat shrink trim insulation back about 1/4 inch solder each wire separately then join together with out any solder just use what's already on wire ends it makes a better joint and neater or if you have a brace push ends together hold with brace then solder not easy, better you use first method. John

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I've been trying to rep[ly to these suggestions but the laptop was playing silly whatsits.

First problem. My soldering skills are nil. Any soldering I've done in the past looks like an iron foundry, has more electrical resistance than a latex suit and uses the best paryt of a roll of solder per joint. 

Still, if that's how it is, then I'll have another bash... unles someone has another suggestion..... please.   :-)

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