I finally gave up on my old crimp tool after a chat at the supply house
I was picking up some RG6 in Tacoma last week and the guy behind the counter saw my ancient crimper. He said, 'Man, you're still fighting that thing? The new ones have a ratchet that won't let you mess up the crimp.' I bought a Klein VDV226-110 on the spot. The difference in my terminations is night and day, no more callbacks for a bad crimp. Anyone else make a simple tool swap that saved them a ton of headache?
My buddy had the same thing happen with his wire strippers! He was using these old ones that kept nicking the copper. Swapped them out and his splices got way more reliable overnight.
Totally agree. People underestimate how much bad tools mess up good work. A clean strip is everything for a solid connection. Those little nicks create a weak spot that will fail over time. It's not worth the hassle of using worn out strippers. Just replacing them fixes so many basic problems.
Oh man, that's such a good point! You don't realize how much those tiny nicks add up until you switch to fresh strippers and suddenly everything just works right.