A Proper Crimp - One You Can Believe In

[CAELESTIS]

I hope you didn't just start a bidding war on Ebay!

[knottybuoyz]

I think I'll stick with my $20 crimper thnx.

Frontside of the crimp. I crimp it twice overlapping them.



Backside.



All I had to cut it with was my Dremel so it's a little messy. No I'm not going to polish it either.



And for my close up Mr. DeMille.....



Sorry for the crappy close up. Our camera doesn't have a macro setting. You can take my word for it there's absolutely no voids in this crip. It's one solid piece of copper just like the other crimpers produce only mine has three sides instead of six.

Good 'nuff for the girls I go with!

[FrankZ]

How long does the crimp take you to make?

[knottybuoyz]

Originally Posted by FrankZ

How long does the crimp take you to make?

It took me longer to peel off the insulation than it did make the crimp. Probably a minute total.

[btrayfors]

Get one of these...one of the most useful (and inexpensive) tools ever:

http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_1...0070921x00003a

Actual time on most any cable (these were with AWG2 cable):

1. make a clean end cut ..... < 5 seconds
2. make a clean circular cut and a longitudinal cut and strip the end..... 13 seconds

Total: 18 seconds

Ready to crimp.

Bill

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by Joli

Nice!

Buy good tools once or cheap crap over and over again.

Only the first half of it.

Unless you accept crap quality of (crimps, in this case).

Cry once.

b.

[sebberry]

Originally Posted by btrayfors

Took a small length of new AWG4 stranded marine battery cable. With the Greenlee crimper, attached the lug: Attachment 15393

Hello there,

I'm just starting to learn how to do this myself and picked up a set of Greenlee K05-1GL crimpers.

Which crimp terminals did you use in your photo there? The ones I got seem to not be thick enough as they just slide off the cable with virtually no force. Also possible that the cable is too small, but it is 4AWG.

Thanks!

[btrayfors]

I purchase lugs from several places including, occasionally, West Marine when I'm stuck and need them immediately.

Mostly, though, I buy cable lugs from Genuinedealz.com
Great service, great gear, great prices. Free shipping and FAST.

Congrats on the new crimper. You'll love it. Don't know how I ever got along without my two Greenlee crimpers (the larger one mostly for 2/0 and 4/0 cable).

Don't forget the Sears Handi-Cut tool. You'll never make a better $20 purchase. They are incredibly useful for all sorts of things, including dealing with battery cable of all sizes.

Cheers,

Bill

[goboatingnow]

And it would be difficult to see how soldering this crimp could improve it; where would the solder flow into. Maybe time for another experiment - anyone????

No solder disimproves crimp joints by work hardening and leads to fracture. A good crimp is gas tight

Dave

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

No solder disimproves crimp joints by work hardening and leads to fracture. A good crimp is gas tight

Dave

Sorry, I have to disagree.

In theory a very good crimp IS gas tight but I have never seen a really good one done outside of specialist workshops using hydraulic crimpers. All crimps I have seen done in the field even using high end calibrated tooling have voids in them.

Here is the test: Do you best crimp (using an open ended lug), heat carefully with a small torch and apply solder to the terminal end of the lug. See if you can get solder flowing into the crimp. If you can and if it comes out at the cable end, you have voids and as such, that crimp was not gas tight.

Now cut the crimp and polish as suggested earlier, with enough magnification, you will see veins of solder running through the crimp.

However I agree that one should not normally add solder to a good crimp but never think it is gas tight or that water won't migrate into it if given a chance.

Another reason to close ended lugs and adhesive heat shrink or similar.

[Lars_L]

If I strip the cable and put some Vaseline on it before I do the crimp. Is it then watertight? Maybe it needs to be an open-ended lug? Of course, I can still put on an adhesive heat shrink.

[US1Fountain]

Originally Posted by sebberry

Hello there,

I'm just starting to learn how to do this myself and picked up a set of Greenlee K05-1GL crimpers.

Which crimp terminals did you use in your photo there? The ones I got seem to not be thick enough as they just slide off the cable with virtually no force. Also possible that the cable is too small, but it is 4AWG.

Thanks!

I also bought that same crimper this past winter. Also buy all my lugs and wire from Genuinedealz. I buy the HD lugs when a choice. When I crimped smaller wire such as 8AWG, the crimp looked really nice. However, when I crimped my larger cables, 2AWG and larger, the crimper always would leave a sharp flashing at the pinch point were the dies meet when closed. I would always have to rotate the lug in teh tool and lightly close the crimper to bend the flashing over to rid the sharp edge. Didn't close tight to where it would recrimp the lug. Otherwise, all the crimps where solid.
Buy a good pair of cable cutters! Menards has both Greenlee and Klien cutters in the electrical dept. $20.

[osirissail]

Originally Posted by btrayfors

Looked pretty good, as always. Now, got set up for some surgery with a hacksaw:
Attachment 15394
Bill

The only legitimate purpose of adding electrical solder to the crimp is to seal the copper wire from exposure to the salt air atmosphere and prevent corrosion.
- - If you look at the finished crimp you will find a gap between the actual crimp and the cable insulation. Applying electrical solder would seal in the strands of copper wire in that exposed area - but - better still would be some epoxy lined heat shrink tubing. It would "glue" itself to the metal terminal and to the insulation of the wire cable thereby sealing off the exposed wire.
- - Trying to use electrical solder to seal cable strands on battery cables or really any wire cable larger then #4 gets real difficult as the amount of heat needed to raise the metal to the solder flow temperature becomes immense. Normal electrical soldering guns cannot generate that amount of heat. And you end up burning or blistering the plastic cable insulation.

[btrayfors]

US1Fountain,

Yes, I sometimes get those little tabs, too. Seems to depend on the individual lug size.

I use a pair of very small wire snippers to cut them off. Fast and easy.

Bill

[sdowney717]

I have another crimp style.
simply this,
take a copper tube close to the size of the stripped wire strands.
strip wire cover back about an inch depends on wire gauge.
slide copper pipe onto copper wires all the way till wire ends slightly stick out of tube.
take a heavy 2 lb hammer and a smooth hard surface and smash it good and flat. It WILL flatten out with repeated blows
solder end shut as a seal
then drill hole and mount it to stud.
They never break off or pull out because the copper wire and tube are very strong and thicker than any of those lugs.

here I made a busbar out of copper and the wire I actually put together
from many bare strands. This wire takes the entire DC load from the battery switch and sends to the copper bar.




the wood is a piece of hardwood plywood which I drilled and mounted the bar onto. The copper is 3 sheets of 1/8 copper plate soldered together and thru bolted