ANY GOOD? Budget solution for LARGE WIRE CRIMPING?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.พ. 2023
- In custom car audio we need to crimp wire lugs onto large wires. 8 Gauge, 4 Gauge, and 0 Gauge are very common sizes. This usually requires an expensive hydraulic crimping tool in order to properly crimp the wire terminals. Does this new cable lug crimping tool perform well? How does it stack up against the hydraulic crimper for attaching battery terminal lugs? Let's take a look!
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With the blue tool, I crimp one size up, then again with the actual size. It completely eradicates the squished side of the crimp that you are getting. Nothing compared to the hydraulic varients. But decent enough for the money 💰
another tool to use to strip large wire is actually a wheel-based pipe cutter, the one where you tighten a wheel over the copper and spin it while tightening it to eventually snap it apart
As a non professional I found this crimping tool to be easy and effective. I'm glad i bought it!
I've been using that mechanical style for over 20 yrs, I have the greenlee brand, they definitely work best with certain brands of lugs, mine has a label around both handles with the types, they work great, mostly used mine in commercial electrical work but used them also for car audio power cables, never had a lug come off or fail. For the average person doing a car audio system these are perfect, the price is good ( they used to be over $100 ). As for the quality of the cheaper Amazon ones I can't say, mine were made in the USA.
I used a hammer crimper on the battery wires for my solar setup. It's cheap, easy and works great. Used a 4 pound hammer.
It's an attractive choice especially for a tool that's only going to be used a few times and you don't have to
"sell your first born" to get one.
love your channel
been watching for years
I admire your dedication to quality craftsmanship
Appreciate that a ton. Thank you
You were born for this man!
I have the hydraulic crimper and I love it. It's a beast for sure.
I have been using the same exact yellow and black Amazon bought hydraulic crimper for years now. I think I'll stick to it as it does what I need for all larger lugs. Great to see how these mechanical ones do though
Place I worked used to make custom length Power Cables. We used this same tool, however, on the second crimp, we turned the lug 90° from the first crimp. We never got a come back when we did that, where as, when someone made a mistake and crimped them inline, we would always get a come back and have to redo the cable, and well, after a month in service, it generally meant having to make a brand new cable for the customer. It should be noted, generally, the power cables we made, were used in applications where the cabling had to flex back and forth, putting extra strain on the lugs.
I have that crimper it's never given me an off side crimp I use it on 2ga,4ga, and 8ga I love it it's awesome and quick.
I have been using these crimpers for years. They do require a lot of force but they work. Hard part is try to do the crimping on wire that is already installed in a vehicle
in my experience owning those blue crimpers, they are well worth the money! it's accessible, does the job more than well enough, and is fine especially if you're a DIYer! well worth the money
It is great to see videos answering common questions that are always asked. The last one that talked about feeling let down by your aftermarket speaker choice this one about crimping I don't know if you've done any videos about game setting that is another pretty common question asked. Maybe things that are wire related. Such as through a firewall best place to route wires how to make wires look clean at the amp.
Pretty sure he has done multiples vids of each of those topics.
That's a beautiful floor you have in your kitchen Mark!
Wish I would have known the hydraulic crimper is so affordable before buying the big pry bar one. Great tip.
I have the same crimpers and get the same results. I have resorted to doing a partial crimp, then rotating the lug and finishing the crimp. Because of the narrow die, I have to do this twice on every crimp. Not the most productive, but for the frequency of use, it's workable. I use anchor brand terminals so theoretically not chinese junk.
Been using the blue handle crimper for like two years. I’ve had no problems.
Same here
Great item for the price
I have 3 different styles of crimpers and these two styles are the ones I use the most, the blue ones for small sizes like 1/0 on down and use my hydraulic ones for 2/0 and bigger
The best hid.crimper is the TEMCO TH1818 it's a Dieless crimper it makes my job easier
@@djkeys415s 100% i have a few Temco crimpers, but for the big stuff i absolutely love that TH1818.
I came searching to see if others had off-center crimps on lower gage wires with this tool and you seem to have the exact same issue. My 6ga crimps create a "tab" on one side a little more severe than your 4ga demo. They are locked tight and won't slip but I don't like the offset crushed tab this creates. I will use a size larger now on for my 6ga to see if that improves things. Just visual spotting of the 6ga die setting it looks way too small an opening. Thanks for posting this.. it was helpful.
Not a bad price for either. You can also use a dull railroad spike & a hammer on an anvil & actually get really good results. 2 divots on one side, one on the other right in the middle
I just tried KnuKonceptz for the first time and definitely high quality wire. I do have the blue crimper and had I known I would use them so much would've went hydraulic. But blue ones work
I own both styles. The plier style crimp started to not clamp down all the way. So the cables would be loose in the lug. I had it replaced under warranty. The replacement lived about a year longer than the first but eventually did the same thing, wouldn’t crimp all the way. No visible signs of bending or wear.
In the 6 years of using my hydraulic crimp it has never failed me and the crimps are clean and straight.
100% agree they are ridiculously cheap for the amazing crimps they can make. Why is it it seems like no one wants to spend a few $ on the hydraulic crimpers? People are just throwing their money away on the jaw style you could do a better job with a punch and hammer.
@@supersportimpalass because if someone is just doing a one-off installation in their own vehicle, they don't want to splurge hundreds on a hydraulic crimper for like 4 crimps
@@supersportimpalass just by pure price comparison, you can get the whole manual crimper along with a set of like 100 assorted copper lugs for a good bit cheaper than what it costs to get even some generic hydraulic crimper. Not even remotely worth it if it's a single installation with max of 2-3 uses in multiple years.
Also punch and hammer do not do any better of a job, not to mention they take far more effort, noisy, impractical and again, cost as much as something that's faster, silent, easier to use and gives same results majority of the time
@@LochyP bruh that hydraulic crimper is like 60 bucks
I bought a hammer-style crimper to make new battery cables for my truck, using marine 2/0 cables and marine heat-shrink tubing. I made all the cables off the truck so working on the ground was fine. If I had to crimp in the vehicle I would get hydraulic crimpers.
I use the blue handle jobs as part of my workout routine, since I don’t go to the gym (but I should).
My diy solution is a brake line flare clamp, bolts replaced with grade 9 and use an impact driver to tighten. If using outside the car I put it in a vice. However this looks like a decent affordable tool, thanks for sharing
Flare clamp, thanks for the tip!
my sledge and hammer crimp tool have done just fine...just use the back of the vice instead of the floor :)
I had those mechanical crimpers. I broke the dies twice. I bought the hydraulic ones and havent had a problem since.
Priceless
I have the hydraulic crimper for the KnuKonceptz 4/0 wire. Just a heads up for anyone that wants to get the hydraulic crimper with the 4/0, you're gonna need a smaller pin as the wire/terminals don't fit through, even with the 4/0 dyes with the crimpers
I went to Menards and got a heavy duty bolt that was slightly smaller than the pin with the crimper
Get the temco TH1818 and it will make quick work of 4awg
I use a small bench vice and a little solder. Hold the eye of the lug in the vice, heat the lug up, and melt a little solder into it. Insert the wire into the lug and push while opening the vise up till the barrel of the lug is in the jaws of the vice then tighten the vice. I thought those tools were way more expensive, I'd probably buy the cheaper one because it's easier to store in a tool chest. I guess getting a set of dies and useing my 20-ton shop press would be overkill, would be the best takes less space option.
Mark, I hope you are well, quick question regarding my car audio setup please.
Am getting a 4 channel amp JBL Club A754 and also 2 sets of 6x9 JBL Stage2 9634 3-Way. I also also looking to buy 2 sets of tweeters front and back. How do I hook up the tweeters? Can I tap them on the 4 channel amp or tap on the pioneer head unit directly or would you recommend to buy a second amp just to run the tweeters ?
Please help me out !
Many thanks in advance
I've been on using this and I double crimp and haven't had an issue. Sometimes I even go to the next smaller lug for the second crimp.
Try this style of crimper , $51.00 and works great used them for years. Kh-150 Large Gauge Ring Terminal Crimper 24" Wire Crimping Tool 8awg-250mcm
I use pliers by crimping one side of the connector then the same on the opposite side. The top one overlaps and then I soldered the wire to the connector.
Would it make sense to do the second crimp at a right angle to the first one?
I struggle with the offset crimp that you had. Some even end up with 2 wings if the lug is slightly larger. Love the Knu cables, and their RCAs
Oh I hate that wings on my crimps that wy I got the temco TH1818 FROM amizon no changing dies
I’ve used this crimper and it’s worth it. Works quite well.
The jaws or hydraulic one?Because the jaw style makes the worst crimps I’ve ever seen. 😂
@@supersportimpalass I don’t like the look much either but it still works good enough.
User error in your case.
I got one of those for my alternator wire
Some crimpers are calibrated in millimeters instead of AWG. The millimeter ones don't crimp properly.
The best budget crimper is the TEMCo Hammer Lug Crimper. I used it professionally for a couple decades and still keep one around for the occasional install.
Is it the best crimper ever made? No. But it’s the best for the lowest cost.
Get a vice grip on it good, then use another wrench to tighten the vice one turn or until very tight. Makes a great connection
I want to connect leds to my custom speaker enclosure and I want them to light up with the music rythm but I don't want to use the music leds that you can buy because their reaction time is so slow is there an easy way to connect the leds so they get a signal from the amplifier?
I've had pretty decent results with a 4 pound sledge and a hammer set crimper It's not as nice as a ratcheting crimper, but a crimper for 1/0 wire is quite a bit more expensive than one that maxes out at 8AWG
@@martinwhite418 well it sure passes the pull test, it is absolutely not coming loose. I never measured the resistance of the crimp, but I used that on the battery cables on my V8 truck which has a 2KW starter and it has worked fine for 2 years.
Nice tool
I have those wire crimpers and cutters
Hey, I know this hasn't particularly anything to do with the video but I thought you guys might help.
I''ve started with getting a single din headunit called " Pioneer MVH 280-FD ". and so I connected everything and everything was playing allright, until, I went over a certain volume and the clipping started. I quickly researched that this particular headunit needed a separate 12V from the battery to run since it was a high power headunit.
I Installed the 12V directly from the battery and I was still using the cars ground/negative wire from the factory wiring harness.
This fixed the problem for a little while, that is until the headunit started running a little bit hot that the clipping would come back. So i thought that the ground wasn't good enough from the car itself and so I ran a ground directly to the car chassis (in-turn losing the remote turn-on/off)
That had the same result basically as before, headunit went hot and clipping came back.
Could it be that this particular headunit needs both the positive and negative to run from the battery because this is my last idea and I don't know what else to do.
I'm only running the pioneer headunit, no other amps are connected. Just plain simple headunit with 4 speakers and 2 tweeters.
Sorry for the long message but I thought it would be best to explain thoroughly
Making only the positive wire a better connection won't help much, if at all, both need to be made better. Ground is usually easy, just run it to any nearby screw in a metal portion of the dash or firewall.
Them cheap hammer crimp tools work great in a vise!!
Can you use that wire for solar set ups.
I have been using the type of lugs with setscrews reusable and they work maybe a little more expensive
What websites do you use to download high rez music i found it kinda confusing to find a good one
I make a lot of battery starting cables and ground cables for motorcycles and even diesel trucks and I have a love/hate relationship with my hydraulic crimpers. They were a cheap set from Amazon but they have worked fine for a few years now. The problem is they use metric dies and those are slightly different from awg. They might be too loose and thenlug pulls right off, swap to the next size down and it is so tight that it breaks half the stranded copper inside. So I have to play this trial and error game of sometimes using 2 different dies (top and bottom) and maybe easing up and adjusting how tight the crimp gets. Kind of annoying, but I've only had to redo a few crimps.
Would I be happier with better tool that actually works with awg? Sure! But I got this for cheap and it works fine for now. It's fine for the 3-4 times i use it each year.
Are you crimping right next to the end of the lug? The crimps should be centered on the lug to leave a flare so it doesn’t pinch off the strands. I’ve found I still need to experiment on the crimps depending if I use standard or heavy duty lugs but thats not really the fault of the dies. I always mount the crimper in the vise so its easy to do the pull test after I make a crimp. If it starts to pull off be careful and swap out for the next size down.
Concrete and sledgehammer for my first build, now doing a full trunk build for my girlfriends car but didn’t know how much use it would see afterwards, but I’m not doing the sledgehammer and concrete method for this one. By getting my girl another car, my backseat is finally coming out…for more subs…more wire….so!
hi, can you please tell me if is any gain to sound proof the floor of an bmw e64 lci of 2009 ? is a convertible. when i try to remove the floor thing i see under is very things layers from bmw...
then maybe is no sse to make all the floor but the door panels sides yes ? its a 2 doors.
by sound proofing my interior i mean 2 layers, 1 against vibration and the 2nd foam for sound. ;)
i plan to retrofit a bmw bower and wilkins sound system with there amplifer.
thank you ;)
I bought a Hydraulic crimping tool , it was a 10 ton outfit, but was a pain, didn't like it , was difficult, paid over $40.00 , return it bought the hand model, definitely like . Try make #4 battery cooper cale with 3/8 eyelets, the Hydraulic gave me problems. The leverage was terrible on the Hydraulic press. Ps maybe it was a cheaper bran ?? Appreciate your advise and comments. Thanks
Great video, Mark! What's your take on adding in solder into the lugs as well for big stuff like battery cables? It seems a lot do and a lot don't.
Buy the hydraulic crimper you won’t need to use solder. Using the correct dies the cable and lug will actually cold weld together. There’s a reason why the majority of factory connections don’t use solder as it isn’t needed and doesn’t make the connection any better.
A correct crimp (die size matched to terminal size) does not need solder, but some cars and aircraft solder the crimp AFTER it is made. BUT it’s overkill for car Stereo work IF you size the crimper correctly.
@@supersportimpalass In some instances solder can actually make the connection worse. The solder solidifies the connector making it brittle and in a car that is subject to vibrations, heat, and flexing, it can break the connection. I had that happen on a few connections in my car before I decided to stick to crimping.
It's preference. I know someone that'll solder and then crimp. My coworkers like to solder and not crimp.
I'm the odd one out at work since crimp and no solder is my go to method.
Hello, sorry for my enghish, in one video you show a tool to wire a wire beetween a hardness, a little plastic like a pua of guitar, i cant find the video, can you tell me the mame of the tool?
Yeah surely I will be sticking with my yellow case hydraulic crimper set after seeing the results of that hand crimper tool. If someone is to use that kind of crimper they probably should also solder it because of the open space left over within the lug. With the hydraulic crimper there is no space left over for solder basically making a cold weld which is the best for bigger lugs.
The crazy part is this budget crimper came across my feed and my first thought before purchasing was let me run it back to CAF and see what tool he was using
Cool 😎
I have a pair like this and I bent mine... Hydraulic is the best way to go.
I really wish I looked more into this before I decided to purchase my Greenlee EK622PLX. 😂
I have that same blue handled tool and while it works fine, I hate that it crimps unevenly leaving that 'tab' sticking out one side. Next time I use it I'm going to try leaving the mandrel unlocked and manually pre-set them evenly to see what happens. My hope is that they'll close more evenly rather than the near side closing first and pushing all the excess material out the far side.
You can also just apply enough force to partially crimp half way, then without moving the position. Just rotate your crimp & wire 180°, then finish crimping all the way through.
I've done that rotation trick while crimping tons of stop sleaves onto steel cables for fire suppression systems
One could probably also align the lug in the crimper so the "sticking out" part is facing down or away so it's not visible.
The lever style crimpers are definitely faster. But I think the hydraulic crimpers are better overall since they require less leverage. That is especially important for under hood and in vehicle situations. Ideally I would have the Milwaukee electric crimpers, but a 5 grand tool is a hell of a hard thing to justify.
Agreed 100%
What lugs do you recommend?
I have this exact crimper it's Amazon special and its freaking mint. Does all the common sizes for audio.
13$ hammer crimper works perfectly fine and fast
What causes little wings on crimped lugs
How much and where I can buy it?
Quick tip, when crimping large wires or even smaller wires start as far as possible away from the connector of the lug if you have a shallow crimper.
I did 300mm^2 copper and 400mm^2 AL wires in wind turbines and we crimped twice on each lug starting from the wire side and second crimp closer to the lug end.
Never had to redo the crimp after QA looked at it.
What if I don’t want to buy a crimper and already have solder and a torch in the barn, that should be about as good if not better than crimping right?
typically, just experiment
I have a hamer stile crimper and I have donde tons of jobs with it and hasnt fails me yet for 3 years
And the blue crimper over here is 50-60$ and the yellow on is around $80-100 on ebay I live in PR
I have this as well as hydraulic. Haven’t used it since I got the hydraulic but it never failed to crimp.
Is puddling the caps with solder not a thing for solid connections anymore? What is going on?
Those lever crimpers are crap! I’ve had to make battery cables on the side of the highway (I’m a diesel mechanic) with them and they do work. But you better be in good shape…
The hydraulic crimpers are the way to go. Especially today when they’re the same price as a good lever crimper.
However… I can say the really annoying thing about the hydraulic options is that they are almost always setup for metric wire sizes. Which is why you often have to use several different dies to crimp one lug. It would be awesome if some company would even offer just the AWG dies for this hydraulic crimpers.
Please does anyone know what size I need to replace the seals on the yellow hydrolic. I've had mine for 5-6yrs and it gave out but I wanna save it
to replace the seals would probably cost you more than buying a new one..... between the different seals the replacement oil and shipping you would just be better served to buy a new one
Hey mark have you ever done any SPL builds I enjoy SQ but I’ve always been with SPL like the 140-160db builds and shaking the whole car😂
Definitely done some loud builds! Here's one from the channel th-cam.com/video/UR7bsKxiwgY/w-d-xo.html
Hydraulic is nice, the manual ones blow to use, the corddieless ones are the shit.
If you buy the same capacity hydraulic crimper the price firrfence is negligible and is a much more ergonomic tool if you crimp alot of wires.
No way my OCD would let me live with that uneven double crimp. I'll stick w my hydraulic pump version until I can afford a nice 18v cordless power crimper.
I use a ball bearing and a bench vise
Interesting
I bought exact this tool with metal parts included and the smallest hole of the tool was only "16" while most of the parts were for smaller cables.
This makes the tool useless and it would be good to show smaller cables in the video because these will not work. I advise the tool factory to include a 6 choices round openings frame with more differences with big AND small. Now this tool can only be used with quite big cables.
I just use the wire stripping tool or some pliers...
I literally bought the blue ones last month from aliexpress😂
the first cable is 35mm2 section. I think the gouge measures are not good in this tool. mine one is in mm2
I use a pair of vice grips to clamp the terminal down. Then give it another half turn and repeat. 3-4 times of this and it's usually crimped down pretty solid.
Hooked my brand new amp up and when it turns on it instantly gets hot and goes into defence mode anyone know why this is ?
How’d you know I use a sledgehammer on concrete 😂
I have that crimper and it works great! I go one extra step. I take a torch and heat the lug and pour soldier into it. Then heat shrink to seal it up. Heat shrink also gives it a professional look.
Using flux gives some additional resitance and is britttle
@@1ssac1 interesting. I thought it would be a far better connection. Noted and thank you.
@@adampatterson9404 like how you noted the comment for knowledge and not criticism. Wish more people did that. 😊
@@basstech714 you have to empty your cup and make room for new knowledge.
@@basstech714 want to hear the embarrassing part...I'm an electrician for over 20 years...LOL. I've rarely had to crimp on an end. All of our terminations land on lugs.
Crimp one way then twist it and crimp again. Gets rid of the wing
whats wrong with using a bench vice? I mean , if i was doing 100 of lugs, then yeah maybe invest in this shit, but for doing a couple of cars, probably get away with using a vice or hammer that i allready own.
Guilty! I've used a hammer! Haha! Other times I've used a ton of solder. Haha!
I bought some of those manual crimpers and they suck... they pinch to one side and a pain to use...
The 4g problem is the lug was too big for the wire, I have that problem when it doesn't match adequately
Good video Mark but this stuff is best suited for installers and not someone building for their own cars in the driveway. All this shit adds up. The Jokari is nice but there goes another $22.00. I'll get by with a box cutter and a sharp blade.
I guess if you don't own a big daddy crimper it's fine, not gonna give up my hydraulic for it though.
What if you heat up the lug with a torch, fill it up with hot solder, dip in the cable and let it settle? That is a good physical connection too right? A gas torch can be had for cheap. Any negative effects when going that way that you know of?
Solder adds resistance. Seen a video where soldered connections lost some voltage compared to not using it
👍👍👍👍👍👍
I normally filled the clamp with melted tin
I don't crimp large connectors no more. I put some flux in there. Fill with solder. Torch it then push the wire in melted solder. Bring to temp and bam. Done.
Thanks, that's what I was looking for. I have one connector to put on and I really didn't want to buy this tool for one time use.
Ah yes, using solder in a high temp/vibration/pull strength environment where a bad connection can lead to fires. Awesome! The industry must be retarded to not use it in mass production and repair solutions
I used to fill with solder as well, until I read multiple posts and articles against that method. This was agreed upon by multiple individuals who work in variious electrical engineering fields. Basically what happens to the wire strand when filled with flux and solder? It wicks the solder up beyond the termination point underneath the insulator jacket. When that cable/wire is flexed or say "vibrated to death" by a subwoofer, the area where that solder wicked up inside the cable can now become an invisible section at risk of breakage and then shorting. Unless you check cable temps regularly you wouldn't notice till something bad could happen. Sorry for the drawn out explanation. 😅
Blue handle crimper broke after about 10 1/0 lugs. Do not use it for 1/0. 30-40 bucks is better spent elsewhere.