This is a video to show you how I organize the many assorted crimp-tool dies I have
so that I can quickly find the correct ones when I need to. Now some of you may be less familiar
with what crimp-tools & dies are. So just let me show quickly what some of these things are
Without going into too much detail, I'll give you a very quick walkthrough of some
of the connectors that are available. This is just a small range of connectors I have.
This is a sample of some of the boot-lace ferrule connectors that I have.
So I have a few sample connectors to show you, & to start with we have here
a fork connector, we have a ring terminal, we have a bullet with a piggy back because
this connector allows you have another terminal connector piggyback off the side. We have boot lace
ferrule. That's a large one obviously. We have copper lugs which are
used for terminating / connecting to battery bolt terminals generally.
That one handles a 10mm2 wire, & it has a 8mm diameter. This one handles a 70mm2
wire entry, with a 8mm diameter. These are Anderson plugs.
That's a small one to fit a SB50 which handles up to 50A current. This is the housing,
that's the plug. The housings can accommodate a few sizes of plugs, so that's great. This is a
larger plug for a larger housing, & the housings come in different colors. If they are genuine products
only a red will mate to a red, or green to a green. Just to show you what tool you use.
So in the case of these insulated terminals here, you see the yellow is a size, a bigger size than
the blue, which is the bigger size than the red. So what you do is feed the wire in there
put the
end in there, & then you squeeze... Would fit into that one
For the boot lace ferrule connectors, you would use something to suit the diameters. In this case,
this tool fits 0.25mm2 to 10mm2 wire. So what you do is you fit the wire in here,
then you push it into here, & then you squeeze hard. & what it does is create a square crimp.
Now, this big one doesn't fit this.
So you have to have another tool, & this is where if you had replaceable dies you'll
be able to do that. For the copper lugs, they're actually very thick & solid.
So you'll have to use a tool like this. Well, you could try it with weaker tools but
they're not gonna work. This being 10mm2 wire, I select 10 here, & then I'll select
10 there as well.
& then put the wire through there, & put it through this & squeeze hard. It provides
a hexagonal crimp shape. For this bigger one, 70mm2 even this tool is not adequate.
So here I have a bigger tool.
It has dies which can be removed.
In here, a die to handle 50mm2 but you can see
spare dies here ranging in sizes. So if I pull out this die,
it has 120mm2.
So you could put the 2 of them together, & they'll crimp the wires
in a hexagonal crimp shape. This is great because all the dies are in here.
You're not going to lose the dies, they're well organized. It's great if you have a kit where
the dies can be kept as part of the kit.
When you crimp the ring terminals, you end up with connectors that look like this
For the Anderson plugs, they will look like this.
& when they're in the housing, they just look like that.
Here, I have a large Anderson plug. It's a SB120 which has capacity for 120A, & the cable
I have here is a 1B&S gauge (1 Battery-Start cable).
The problem I have when I have
a wide range of crimp-tool dies, & you may have the same problem or more if you have more
dies to keep, is that if I take all these dies & I put them into one container, it is going to be a
headache trying to identify the correct dies to use; what the die is for; which bottom jaw fits
which top jaw. So that is a hassle I have had in the past - where I figured I need a better
way to do this. So for me, this is a very cheap cost-effective way of organizing my dies so that I
can pick the right one quickly, & keep them in an organized fashion. I just use key tags & I write
the name of that particular die in the key tag paper, & then I use a tie wire
to tie to the key tag. I have a die suited to RG
58 & 59 coaxial cable. So if you look at the tag, I've written a description there. Then all I do
is use the tie wire
to tie the top and bottom jaws together. that's it.
That's an insulated terminal die - you can see the color coding.
All these ones are done, so it doesn't matter if I jumbled them up.
Then I use a simple box, drop them in there.
You don't need the partitions. This just happens to be the box I have.
& it's done now. If I need to replace a particular die, then I take the crimp-tool ,
unscrew the top & bottom jaws, remove the jaws, put the die to one side.
In this case, I have to a tag pre-made for it, so I will put the tag to the die that I
just removed. Then I pick the die that I want, remove it from the tag, install it
to the tool, screw them on. Leave the tag in the box. I'm good to go. So I should only at any one time
have one loose tag which is for the particular die that's in the device - that's it.
I hope you found this video interesting, & SUBSCRIBE as I have a few more videos coming online soon.