Today we're going to take a look at the Ergostrip from Knipex
right now i'm going to pass it over to you to start with from my right hand to your right hand
and why is that so important gordon because this is the right-handed version gary yes i actually
do a left-handed one as well don't worry which will come on too and we will come on to that in a
moment we're going to do first let's use it let's strip something shall we yeah i mean dead easy uh
yeah i mean so here's a closer look at it there okay the concept is closed there so this little
catch at the side here springs open oh lovely yeah this side here strip it in their conductors
yeah marked on there so that's point two to four millimeter squared yeah that's it it's
got this side ripper here to strip down the wall of the cable right and then you've got two sized
blades at this end for different diameters of cable so a slightly smaller one there
okay and the larger one there now obviously Knipex from Germany so this is normally designed for
obviously german cables or ones that a german electrician has to come in front and the one
mentioned on the packaging is NYM which is a round cable but not one we typically use in uh in the
uk right okay so yeah that's the round like where we've got our twin & earth they've got that sort of
round looking flex yeah around twin and earth yeah but uh yeah we don't get the luxury using that so
dead easy to use so again another little feature before i go in there oh obviously this is that's
sprung i'll just latch that one back in place to get your cable here's this little
yeah see that you could lift it with your finger but yeah it just drops in there don't you could
lift it yeah okay so you're in the smaller end yeah well obviously you can push the cable through
as well if you want to remove quite a bit of the outer sheath okay it'll do diameters from is it
8mm to 13mm diameter cable uh yes it will that's at that end so we've gone into the other
end here which is again i'm just going to push in there that's a case a twist okay yeah and that's
scoring rounds i've scored the end and then i want because i'm going quite a way down this cable
yeah you're going to use that slicing blade so just undo my latch yeah something quite satisfying
about this isn't that so latching that in there yeah in there and that's just going to run down
the cable yeah yeah i'll just push that oh yeah you can see it's split already yeah come on and
pull it open for me it's always the last bit i always find is the hardest one the blade just
tends to run off than it whatever stripping tool use and then obviously you've got that to pull out
okay yeah we scored it earlier on so we've made a nice joint there we haven't gone into any of
the no inner conductors have really damaged any of them as you run it through as well
great isn't it yeah well i find that quite easy now obviously the true
test of a tool and the true to test of an artisan yeah perhaps we should give this
right-handed tool to a left-handed electrician well now it takes me back to my youth that does
because when i started playing golf my dad went out and looked for a set of clubs and found that
the right-handed ones were considerably cheaper in the second-hand market and i had to learn to play
golf right-handed because the clubs were cheaper and i carried that philosophy on as an adult
because i took up a bit of snooker and paul in my early 20s and i made sure i bought a
right-handed cue so i think i'll be all right well yeah let's have a look at that guy i've
got some left-handed darts i can sell you later on as well a bit more expensive though
okay i do play left-handed dance as well so yeah let's have a look how you got on
so let's put it to work then and see how many of these different types of cables you've got
on the bench that i've stripped so i've started off with the flex that i needed to put into this
joint box here in order to liven up one of our rigs three car pvc flex one millimeter square
conductors yeah great start obviously the outer pvc is removed not damaged the insulation around
the conductors i've swapped over now i'm going to snip them off and start again so i want to strip
this one back okay so this is uh twisted pair 20 gauge and the american wire gauge keep our
American viewers happy okay get it into my right hand okay and around we go and again i could have
used the tool to pull it off i just like using hands for that so i pulled that off and again
no inner insulation damage okay that was using the smaller end of the ergo strip
so I've got a HO7RNF cable here popular on quite heavy duty appliances right I'm going to be in the
larger end this time of the Ergostrip undo the clip a little top tip for everyone that's where
your thumb sits during the scoring process on this end not at the far end okay so that's your thumb
position sits there pop in my 1.5 three core cable okay thumb's in the right position i'm going to
score it round it's quite rubbery so obviously you want to pull it off so let's go and pull it off
and we'll just check and see if i've damaged any of those conductors
oh it's nice it is quite a stretchy cable that can be quite difficult to strip yeah but it was
easy yeah and again no damage to the inner conductor insulation let's step it up let's
go and start stripping off the inner conductors now we know we can go from point two to four mil
so it's appropriate with slots to choose gonna stick with the cable at one five so push it now
so here we go so find the right side and you want one in gas come on pop one out there we go
so yeah look at that yeah so these can be quite uh yeah quite stretchy on this HO7RNF it's so
it is a rubberized conductor as well you notice I haven't damaged any of those very fine stranded
copper conductors as well none of them are on the floor so that's good so now dropped into the flex
so i'm going to go down a size i'm at one mil yeah so again it's good how uh how these align
with this different conductor so there isn't a one mill itself so which one did he go from
here you go you went for the point eight and just didn't you didn't press as hard no i know yeah a
little play around off camera just uh to get used to it yeah there's no problem so again you can
see i haven't damaged any of the copper strands so none of them have come off so it's perfect
all right okay okay back to our twisted pair so this is that point two gauge did you say 20 gauge
americans that lines with a 0.3 uh cross sectional area okay and then yeah again considering how fond
strands are no damage to them at all oh stepping up down up here so this is and some FP200 cable
often not as other names but used on fire alarms extensive got a tough outer jacket on there that
would be great if you had to really get into the back of a box as well to strip it and again the
inner conductors of these are two five yeah quite soft any solid conductors yeah okay pop those off
yeah that's easy yeah it is easy yep okay there you go
so that one's done let's put it to test again i think now so oh 25 millimeter square
meter tails there was something you know very satisfying about doing this that was super easy
again score around okay and then just pull it off look at that yeah your tail ready for terminations
okay we're straining the world of data here now that's where we upset a lot of people
electrician's doing data cables i've got so lots of comments normally but here we go
yeah and you can see how much i pass through the the ergo strippers body as well okay so i've got
a lot longer that time and i'm just going to twist these and again just unlock it okay so using the
0.2 millimetre yeah the very smallest one in it now just popping those off and again no damage
whatsoever so we said the larger end took diameter cables from 8mm to 13mm the smaller end
is it's where it's comfortably suited for your cat5 to catch seven cables that sort of size
diameter cables yeah the other cable this tool will do actually here as well is coax cable
right now obviously we upset a lot of data installers when we uh did some data work on the
channel so we don't want to carry that on and um and upset the tv aerial installing community but
if you are a tv aerial installer or an electrician who has used it to strip corex perhaps you could
drop a comment below and tell us how you get on and we're always interested in those comments
so have you been using this tool from Knipex the Ergostrip if you have and you love it
tell us in the comments is there somebody in the comments struggling maybe to use the tool or for
one of the different applications of cables that you're aware of it it can strip please help them
within the community and we will also try and get back to as many comments as you leave as possible