BCM Community
Bus Discussion => Bus Topics ( click here for quick start! ) => Topic started by: bobofthenorth on February 20, 2010, 09:27:47 AM
For the bus nut who doesn't have quite everything:
Harbor Freight Crimper (http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=66150)
I saw that recommended on a newsgroup that I follow. I don't know whether it is any good but the guy that recc'd it is no fool. At that price it wouldn't have to work for long to pay for itself.
That is absolutely dirt cheap. A quality tool such as the T&B TBM14 is around $2000.00 http://www.kvmtools.com/product_info.php?products_id=6391&language=en (http://www.kvmtools.com/product_info.php?products_id=6391&language=en)
That is without any dies which run about $165.00 per set.
I don't think I would even bother with that one.
That sure beats my vee block and dull chisel!
Brian
I think for the money it would be fine for the do-it-yourselfer
This HF stuff is OK for the occasional use but not for full time professional use, at least this is my experience and I have a bunch of them.
I bought the HF hydraulic crimper when I was doing battery cables. I found out that what the advertisement and box means when it says "crimps 00 wire" should be taken literally. The largest die is the actual size of a 00 wire, but not the correct size for crimping a 00 wire connector. The 00 die will crimp a #6 wire connector. I did a search and found that others have had this problem and contacted HF with no results. The dies go down to #12 wire, but are so small that they are of no use for crimping connectors.
It worked fine on #6 and I saw some discussion on getting the small size dies milled out to work on the larger wire. As always, buyer be ware!