Why? Simple. While you were doing all that, a guy with a proper crimper
would have completed the job, and be sipping his coffee waiting for you
to complete yours. If you had been in the field at the time, he might
have finished his coffee, and decided to loan you his crimper.
RC aircraft guys have this argument all the time between soldered Deans
connectors and APPs. Strip, crimp, insert, done, anywhere,
professionally. That's my reason.
Eric
On 12/11/2013 12:11 PM, Jim Brown wrote:
I think cost new less than $50?
Why would I want to spend $50 (plus shipping, of course) for a crimper
when the soldering iron I already own works really well? Some of my
techniques:
1) The biggest inserts are the most difficult to use, so I use them
only for the #10 wire for which they are designed. I first carefully
strip and tin the wire long enough so that the stripped conductor will
just fit inside the shell once the pin is inserted. That's because the
insulation of a larger cable often does not fit inside the shell. I
find that liquid flux applied to the wire before tinning keeps the
solder layer thin enough to fit in the insert. I then use the pliers
to fold the "wings" over the wire so that, when soldered, it will fit
in the shell. I also use a drop of flux when soldering.
2) The middle-size insert will handle #12 if carefully stripped and
tinned, as above. Again, I use flux for the tinning, and also for
soldering to the pin.
3) I use a lot of the smallest inserts for small diameter cables, like
those from small accessories. I strip the conductors long enough that
I can fold the stripped part over itself with the folded length just
enough to fit in the pin. Again, a drop of flux helps the soldering
process.
4) I use a nice bench vise to hold the cable to which I am soldering,
orienting the cable upward so that the pin sits on it, and oriented so
that the V+ cable is on the right with the lip facing away from me.
Once the pins are installed, I mate a red and black shell, put the two
shells in the vise, then carefully orient the pins and push them in
one at a time until the lip latches to the blade in the shell. For
smaller cable, I use a little green Xcelite screwdriver to push the
pin over the blade.
In general, these techniques work well for almost any connector I need
to install, all the way up to PL259s and multipins of various sorts
73, Jim K9YC
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