I bought a cheap crimping tool for a job in Phoenix and it cost me a day's pay

I was working on a nav system upgrade for a small charter outfit and needed to re-pin a connector. Instead of grabbing my good tool, I saw a generic crimper online for $25 and thought, 'How different can it be?' The answer is very. The crimps looked okay, but after I buttoned everything up and ran a continuity check, I had three intermittent faults. Spent four hours chasing ghosts, re-stripping wires, and re-crimping with my old tool before I found the bad pins. That's $400 in lost time, easy. The cheap tool just didn't hold the pin right, so the connection would drop with any vibration. Now that tool sits in my box as a $25 reminder. Has anyone else found a decent, mid-price crimper that actually holds up for avionics work?

2 comments

2 Comments

umaf2025d ago

Ugh, that's the worst. I had a similar thing happen with a cheap wire stripper. It left these tiny little nicks in the insulation you could barely see. Took me forever to figure out why my splices kept failing a pull test.

margaret9925d ago

Actually, those cheap tools are fine if you know how to use them right. You just have to be more careful with your technique.