Can anyone recommend a good crimper?

guerney

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Because I'm so utterly useless at soldering, I'm looking for a decent crimper for ebike electrical connectors. Can anyone recommend a good crimper?
 

wheeliepete

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Because I'm so utterly useless at soldering, I'm looking for a decent crimper for ebike electrical connectors. Can anyone recommend a good crimper?
If you are useless at soldering that must mean you own one, so practice, it's a much better skill to have than the best pair of crimpers. I'm sure there are plenty of tutorials on Youtube.
 

guerney

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The IWISS is good;


I have the PA-09 also, but preffer the IWISS
Those are both non-racheting, is there a reason(s) why you prefer the non-racheting types?
 

guerney

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Not a crimper but for effort free soldering and insulation these work well
Wow, those are interesting, haven't seen those before - is the "low temperature solder" suitable for connecting the battery to the controller? Would it melt?
 

guerney

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If you are useless at soldering that must mean you own one, so practice, it's a much better skill to have than the best pair of crimpers. I'm sure there are plenty of tutorials on Youtube.
You're absolutely right Wheeliepete, soldering would be a better skill to have but it'd take time to become proficient enough to stop me killing my bike, and I need to get my bike back on the road asap with a reasonable certainty of reliable connections. My entire house stank with solder fumes and I still managed after hours of fiddling about with a soldering iron, to still get it wrong somewhere along the line. At first, crimping seemed a simpler route, but there appears to be a huge variety of crimping tools out there. But I will also practice soldering...
 

TJS109

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I have only used them with signal wires. They melt with the application of a hair drier but are much too hot to touch after the joint has set. If it is a good joint then surely it will not be getting hot anyway.
 
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StuartsProjects

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Those are both non-racheting, is there a reason(s) why you prefer the non-racheting types?
Its not the case that I prefer a non-ratchet, but that ratchet tools tend to be fairy pricy.

If there is a ratchet tool that does as good a crimp as the IWISS, at a similar price, then I have yet to find one.

Molex do some nice ratchet crimp tools, £100+.
 
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guerney

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I have only used them with signal wires. They melt with the application of a hair drier but are much too hot to touch after the joint has set. If it is a good joint then surely it will not be getting hot anyway.
They melt with the application of a HAIRDRYER? They really are "low temperature" - the plastic on the connectors I cut off were slightly heat damaged (the one on the left):

44300


...and the crimp on that connector looks good. I suppose it depends on what the solder melting point is, when used on power connectors as opposed to signal. Very interesting connectors however, and I may actually buy some for other purposes!
 

guerney

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Its not the case that I prefer a non-ratchet, but that ratchet tools tend to be fairy pricy.

If there is a ratchet tool that does as good a crimp as the IWISS, at a similar price, then I have yet to find one.

Molex do some nice ratchet crimp tools, £100+.
My itchy buying finger almost bought a few cheap racheting crimpers recently, I just didn't want to buy junk I'd have to throw away. There are cheap IWISS racheting crimping tools out there, I wonder if this one is any good?

 

guerney

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Sep 7, 2021
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Its not the case that I prefer a non-ratchet, but that ratchet tools tend to be fairy pricy.

If there is a ratchet tool that does as good a crimp as the IWISS, at a similar price, then I have yet to find one.

Molex do some nice ratchet crimp tools, £100+.
What's the difference between the IWS-2820M mentioned in your video and this IWS-2820?


...sorry, it says it's a IWS-2820M, further down the page. I may well buy this one, thank you.

Would love to know what this means:

"Crimping Range: 28-20AWG (0.08-0.5mm2) "
 

guerney

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Sep 7, 2021
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The IWISS is good;


I have the PA-09 also, but preffer the IWISS
What's the difference between the IWS-2820M mentioned in your video and this IWS-2820?


...sorry, it says it's a IWS-2820M, further down the page. I may well buy this one, thank you.

Would love to know what this means:

"Crimping Range: 28-20AWG (0.08-0.5mm2) "
 

StuartsProjects

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I wonder if this one is any good?

No idea, but myself I would only recommend something I have tried myself.

The non-ratchet IWISS does a reasonable job.

And Andreas knows his stuff ......................
 

Woosh

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May 19, 2012
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"Crimping Range: 28-20AWG (0.08-0.5mm2) "
20-28AWG: small signal wires.
The die is the key, they have specific size and shape. 20AWG = 0.81mm, 28AWG=0.32mm in diameter.
you need the right crimper to do a good job.
Show us pictures of the connectors you want to work with, I can make recommendations.
 
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guerney

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Andreas certainly sounds like he knows his stuff. I really need to match the crimps on the connectors I cut off, hence my unending posts about measurements. What do these dimensions refer to? "0.25-1.5mm" squared - is that the 2 dimensional measurement of the surface area of a cross section of a crimped crimp?

 

guerney

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Sep 7, 2021
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20-28AWG: small signal wires.
The die is the key, they have specific size and shape. 20AWG = 0.81mm, 28AWG=0.32mm in diameter.
you need the right crimper to do a good job.
Show us pictures of the connectors you want to work with, I can make recommendations.
Thank you Woosh, any advice you advice you can give as to which crimping tool I should use to match these crimps, would be greatly appreciated! Here are some photos of the crimps. They're bullet connectors, either 3.9mm or 4mm, leading from the battery to the controller:

44304

44305

44306


There must be a crimper available somewhere which crimps crimps like this. What should I be looking for? There are oodles of crimpers out there!
 

guerney

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Sep 7, 2021
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20-28AWG: small signal wires.
The die is the key, they have specific size and shape. 20AWG = 0.81mm, 28AWG=0.32mm in diameter.
you need the right crimper to do a good job.
Show us pictures of the connectors you want to work with, I can make recommendations.

Quite a lot of the crimpers I've seen are too small then. It looks like the work of a dual crimper? Possibly a racheted crimper?