Suggestions on wire crimpers

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I recently got a fixer upper boat that will require me building a lot of cables and crimping a lot of battery ends. The finished product will have 4 batteries and lots of thick wire running everywhere. I will need to do quite a bit of crimping. I have been looking at hydraulic crimpers and came up with three finalists. The crimper has to be strong in order to crimp tinned wire on to thick lugs, and have proper sizes. I might in the future use it for other things such as high amp electric service for welders or farm use.

If anyone has other suggestions than what I came up with, I am open to suggestions.

One thing I have noticed is the two bottom ones are not sized to AWG. They are to mm2. When I look at the conversion chart, the dies could be too loose or too tight. Under the reviews for the Harbor Freight crimper, some say the dies are too tight which makes me wonder if they did not simply re label the dies to AWG when they are really metric.

I already have professional wire crimpers that will go all the way to 6AWG insulated or non insulated and can handle multiple styles of connectors, so the smaller dies are not necessary.

These are the finalists:

Harbor Freight Hydraulic Wire Crimping Tool

16 Ton Hydraulic Wire Terminal Crimper

10-Ton Hydraulic Crimping Battery Cable Wire Crimper
 
I do solder quite a bit. I have irons from 30-200 watt. I have never seen a soldered battery terminal on a boat, but that's not to say it doesn't exist.
 
The HF crimper dies were too small, the newer models seem to have expanded the sizes.

I have the too small dies. They are black.

The 0awg die would do a 4awg crimp OK, but anything larger would have 'ears'.

I've ground out some of the smaller dies to handle 2awg thick walled lugs. This was a fair amount of effort and I went a bit too far on the first attempt.

The Die alignment is not impressive. The tool is not impressive, but can be made to achieve a good crimp.
 
Proper soldering of large gauge wire can make a mess of the wire insulation, and the possibility of a weak cold solder joint by the inexperienced is a strong likelihood.

When fat cable pulls out of a Lug, it can have catastrophic results.
 
I made a crimper out of a piece of steel stock I drilled the appropriate sized hole in then cut in half and a 1/2x 1/4 x 3" piece of steel stock with a small nub on the end. Works great for the copper lugs used in the quick disconnects found on fork truck batteries.

At the old battery factory they use to sweat all the copper wire into the lug. But found that sometimes the that generated by the current draw would melt the solder. They went 100% to crimping.

cable-crimper.jpg
 
Crimp it. Any vibration or tug to say nothing of a high amperage load could be the end of a large soldered connection like that.
 
I used to be a fan of soldering lugs when I used to relocate car batteries to trunks and make up custom battery cables. This was before I saw how superior tinned cable in heavy tinned lugs was to soldered plain copper cable and lugs. Honestly I'm unimpressed with the 3 choices given. I'd suggest the Greenlee K09-2GL K-Series Crimping Tool, 8-4/0 AWG.
 
When using crimp on connectors resist the urge to crimp the connector onto the wire with too much force. this is more true with high strand count wire. If you crush the wire strands they can develop resistance at that point and in high amperage circuits will heat up and over time self destruct. Best thing is get a firm crimp then sweat solder into the joint.

On any boat will be high humidity. tin/sweat all the joints and use liquid electrical coating and shrink tubing to cover any exposed copper.

Not well known is that all automotive harnesses made use manual crimps. It has been tried many times to automate/mechanize crimping and statistically it has been found nothing can compare to a human touch on just how much crimp to apply and not deform the wire.
 
Thanks for all the good advice. Ideally, I would want something somewhat portable where I can work close to the boat. All of the above suggestions would fit the bill. I'm starting to think it would be nice to buy two crimpers of different styles. I researched the suggested crimpers and they all are highly recommended. The three ones I was originally looking at are no longer in the running.
 
I would suggest Ancor crimper and connectors. They are marine and have some double crimp ones and some with adhesive heat shrink. I am not sure about Ancor products for battery cables, but if they make them, they will be high quality.
 
Originally Posted By: HangFire
This may be your cheapest option:
http://www.amazon.com/E-Z-Red-B790C-Hammer-Crimper/dp/B000M7LFKK

I have it and while crude, it does a good job with car battery and welding sized cables and terminals. Crimped in my vise, I can hang 200 lbs of weight on the terminal end (me hanging on a screwdriver) and it won't come off.


I have this also and it works great, the disadvantage is you need a very solid surface to rest it on so you can smack it with a BFH. This would not be good for use in a boat where you could damage the deck. I only use it on concrete.
 
Well..... I bought the Greenlee K09-2GL K-Series Crimping Tool as well as the E-Z-Red-B790C-Hammer-Crimper from Amazon. I bought the EZ-Red too since it was cheap and might be able to fill in a void. A question I have about the EZ-Red; could I use this with an arbor press?

I'll be wiring away this winter with this boat. It is a 2010 Pursuit 31ft dual outboard center console. It was a theft recovery and purchased from an insurance company for next to nothing. I could easily sell the trailer for more than I paid for the whole boat. The engines were unbolted so the hull is perfect, but all the wiring was cut with bolt cutters and the smaller wires were torn. I would say I have over 100 crimps to do. Anything from the instrument cluster, livewells clear back to the engines has to be re done. I already have one engine for it so I can start the wiring process. Within two weeks I hope to make the first crimp. Hopefully I can get the next engine this coming spring after I recover from buying the first engine and tons of wire and lugs.
I plan on doing a few practice crimps
 
That's quite a project! I like working on boats myself, though I no longer own any.

Sounds like you know what you're doing and to use tinned wire & connectors and adhesive heat-shrink. Always for marine applications.

Good luck & post pictures!
 
I'm getting exited. This is the biggest boat I have ever owned. I hope to have some on water pix by spring.
 
Originally Posted By: Michael_P
Well..... I bought the Greenlee K09-2GL K-Series Crimping Tool as well as the E-Z-Red-B790C-Hammer-Crimper from Amazon. I bought the EZ-Red too since it was cheap and might be able to fill in a void. A question I have about the EZ-Red; could I use this with an arbor press?


Yes. I use mine in a vise, but an arbor press will work just fine.
 
Here is another option. I bought a small bolt cutter (14 or 16 inch) and and ground the blades so that they were about 3/16" flat. I used this to crimp aluminum ferrels on woven 1/4" steel cable to make a loop in the cable. It worked awesome and they never came apart, although it was fairly light duty use. Something like that could be used to crimp large copper wire connectors.
 
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