Electric Cable Crimping Tools

Irun

A vicious cycle of doing, undoing, and re-doing!
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I've converted to crimping electrical connections, but have not been satisfied with the quality of crimps for larger wires (e.g. 2 Gauge). I'm currently using this style, but am wondering if there are better tools for the job. What do you use?

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I've converted to crimping electrical connections, but have not been satisfied with the quality of crimps for larger wires (e.g. 2 Gauge). I'm currently using this style, but am wondering if there are better tools for the job. What do you use?

View attachment 351230

I have one of the handheld hydraulic crimp kits from Amazon I bought a few years back, think I paid like $99 for it and they are all very similar it appears. Thing works great with very solid crimps.
 
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TEMCo TH0006 Hydraulic Electrical Cable Lug / Terminal Crimper Kit with 18 Die Sets 12 AWG - 00 (2/0) (5 US TON ) https://a.co/d/hfkDhqZ

I have the harbor freight version of this. In retrospect I would have paid the cost difference. While the HF one has held so far, you can see the differences in the dies pretty clearly which should keep a cleaner crimp.
 
I have this one:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XR8BY65/?tag=wranglerorg-20
I got lucky and found an open box returned one and I think I only paid 30 bucks for mine.
I've done a couple dozen crimps with mine so far.

Weird ass nonstandard die sizes, but there is enough of them I always manage to find one that gives me a good crimp.

There surely are better ones on the market, but unless you are doing a ton of crimps, they are not worth it for the average guy.
 
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TEMCo TH0006 Hydraulic Electrical Cable Lug / Terminal Crimper Kit with 18 Die Sets 12 AWG - 00 (2/0) (5 US TON ) https://a.co/d/hfkDhqZ

I have this same one. It works well, but it leaks hydraulic oil. I think it came with a spare set of seals, but I haven't made time to investigate, yet. It's just a minor inconvenience at this point. I tend to procrastinate until it becomes a major inconvenience, and then wonder why I procrastinated... :rolleyes:
 
Greenly like the one in the top photo, use it on airplane cables too. Heat shrink will cover the crimp so your neighbors won t care
 
I have this one:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XR8BY65/?tag=wranglerorg-20
I got lucky and found an open box returned one and I think I only paid 30 bucks for mine.
I've done a couple dozen crimps with mine so far.

Weird ass nonstandard die sizes, but there is enough of them I always manage to find one that gives me a good crimp.

There surely are better ones on the market, but unless you are doing a ton of crimps, they are not worth it for the average guy.

i got 1 similar to this......worked great, but now just collects dust.
 
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Unless you are a “professional” doing it every single day and can use that reasoning to justify the fancy tools there is no reason to spend more than what I outlined above...

I’ll put the integrity of the crimps from my $23 crimper, $10 baby sledge and free chunk of wood (as my working platform) against anyone’s expensive crimper any day of the week…

I’ve made a lot of very nice cables over the years. I’ve cut through a lot of test pieces from different gauge cables I’ve done. I’ll stand behind my comments 100%…
 
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There's many risks that are pretty low consequence, a crimper not having quite as clean lines is one of them.

The OP was asking about suggestions for a better crimping tool than he had, which he showed pictures of in his original post. He already had a tool that exceed the HF et al hydraulic press POS. Greenlee crimpers and dies would be the OP's next step up in the crimper world.
 
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Unless you are a “professional” doing it every single day and can use that reasoning to justify the fancy tools there is no reason to spend more than what I outlined above...

I’ll put the integrity of the crimps from my $23 crimper, $10 baby sledge and free chunk of wood (as my working platform) against anyone’s expensive crimper any day of the week…

I’ve made a lot of very nice cables over the years. I’ve cut through a lot of test pieces from different gauge cables I’ve done. I’ll stand behind my comments 100%…

I had an old cable that I made for my YJ a long time ago that was too short for anything else, so I decided to check the crimps to see if I could make it fail. Long story short, the lug fails waaaaay before the crimp would...

#malletcrimperteam
 
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