Alright, so today on Repairs101: I thought Iíd take you through the process of making
reliable and weather-proof crimp connections for six, twelve, twenty-four and thirty-two
volt electrical systems.
OK well I think pretty much everyoneís had a kit like this one where you get a multi-pack
full of all kinds of different terminal connections and butt connectors and bullet connectors
and even some fuses thrown in for good measure.
And, you know, it will come with a crimping tool / wire stripper that looks like this
one here and itís going to be a reasonably good connection and serve you fairly well.
But I donít use these anymore and I donít use this crimp tool anymore.
I find the style of insulated terminals to be inferior to un-insulated.
So I much prefer to use un-insulated terminals like these ones here and a pair of terminal
pliers like this one and a piece of shrink-tubing over the end.
If I canít find un-insulated terminals Iíll take the insulated type, just grab the end
of it with my terminal pliers and just pull it off like that and then itís un-insulated.
OK so Iím going to take a piece of ten gauge wire ñ you can see itís marked there.
OK so Iím just going to take a piece of shrink tubing and cut it down to size and before
we do anything weíre going to shrink a little piece of shrink-tubing over the end.
Remember to do it first because youíll find you canít do it last.
Iíll grab these wire-strippers and take the end off real quick.
There we go.
I strongly recommend a pair of strippers like these to anybody who intends to do a lot of
wiring ñ theyíll save you an awful lot of time.
You squeeze the handle and the jaw closes to hold the insulated part of the wire.
Then you squeeze some more and the cutter comes up and grabs the wire and then you pull
it apart with leverage.
Put it in the slot marked for ten gauge wire and itís stripped.
Just like that.
So at this point to dip it in some dielectric grease is always a good idea ñ so you just
want to take the end of that and there you go.
OK now thatís been dipped.
So there we have it marked twelve and ten gauge and we know weíre using a ten gauge
wire because it says right there.
Now Iíve dipped this end and it wouldnít hurt to dip this end.
Just put a little shot of grease up in the middle of that.
There it is.
As you can see thereís a seam in the construction of the terminal, where the saddle sits for
the wire you can see thereís a seam.
So itís very important to put the seam in the semi-circle part so that youíre pushing
the male aspect of the pliers into the back of it.
So you want to load your terminals so that the seam ñ that seam right there loads into
the semi-circle side of the terminal crimp pliers.
OK so you just load that in there like that and you can see the male aspect is going to
push up through the back side and do the crimping from the back side.
So weíre going to load the wire then ñ which weíve already dipped.
Iím going to give a little squeeze and basically itís done.
And this is a very reliable crimp connection and thatís what it should look like when
youíre finished.
The impression from the male aspect of the crimp tool will be in the back like that,
nice and neat.
So all thatís left to do is shrink on the tube.
Iím just going to slip this shrink-tubing up over the connection.
Now you can use a butane torch like this one, or you could use a heat-gun and you can use
a propane torch as well but the propane torch ñ youíre going to find - is throwing too
much heat.
You want to start at one end and then work your way to the other.
It doesnít really matter which end you start at and work towards but you donít want to
start in the middle and you donít want to trap any air inside of it at all.
You just slide on your piece of shrink tubing, and then just go around real light and easy.
You want to start at one end and work your way down to the other and it will melt right
on there sweet as you please.
And there you have it ñ I may have even overdone it a little bit.
Whoops.
You can see Iíve overdone it a little bit.
A little bit of charring but Iíll just wipe that off.
Itís quite hot.
There we have a very reliable crimp connection.