insulation piercing bed-of-nails alligator clips

[brianl703]

I bought a pair of these and they are useful. The bed-of-nails allows you to pierce the insulation and make a connection without stripping the wire. I just attached a short piece of wire to each one and clip the test lead from my multimeter to it. It made real quick work out of figuring out which wires in a 25-conductor cable are connected to pins 1, 2, and 3 on a 25-pin connector, since I didn't have to strip each wire to test it.

The ones I got are identical to the ones the telco guys have on their butt sets. I found a seller on Ebay selling them for $6 a pair.

I don't know how well they work for larger-gauge wire, I've not used them with anything larger than 24awg so far. The clips I have also have a spike which looks like it'd be the thing to use for larger-gauge wire. (I think it's used to connect to that two-conductor telephone drop wire that looks like zipcord).

They also work great for connecting to 66 punchdown blocks, not that I really had a need for that.

 

[George7941]

I have the bed-of-nails clips but I use this instead
http://www.testpath.com/Items/Insulation...Red-116-049.htm
This does minimal damage to the insulation since there is only one needle and it is very fine pointed. The fine delicate point works because the wire is guided into place by the V-slot. They are expensive but well worth the money.

Insulation damage is important if the wire is exposed to the elements, which occurs if the wire is not inside the car, or a house.

I must try the bed-of-nails clip on a 66 block. I only work on 66 or 110 blocks occasionally and I have always punched on a scrap piece of wire on to the terminal to check signals.

Here, in Canada, I run into Bix blocks more often than I do 66 or 110 since Northern Telecom standardized on Bix decades ago.