with the Knipex nexstrip you can replace these three tools with just this one Knipex have been
really clever here they've taken the MultiStrip 10 the tool i've had for years this one's all
battle hardened because it's well used and added a clever ferrule crimper underneath so let's dive
in and take a look let's have a look at the cable cutter first it'll handle up to a 10
millimeter square copper stranded conductor or if this was a single kind of a six millimeter square
cut through them pretty effortlessly to do go off like bullets coming up in this week's go what's
that at the other end of the scale we can handle this security cable here which is 0.25 millimeter
so again good for that or in the in between range we've got some tri-rated switch gear cable here
great great little cutter let's have a look at the automatic stripper function
i've got this depth guide here which allows you to precisely set the amount of insulation you're
going to remove from the conductor so let's try it on this 10 millimeter copper which is the biggest
size the stripper can handle again so that's pretty effortless a nice clean finish on the cable
there try with some 0.5 tri-rated cable so we see a regular cable if you're doing the panel building
but getting effortless stripping with that and then combined with that cutter that's a
really smooth action when we look at small conductors this will go down to missing point
zero three millimeter squared i can't think of any cable that we've ever used that goes that small
uh typically the smallest one we see the security cable again effortless stripping of that now this
is a very fine cable and that's where it brings in the function here where we can adjust the pressure
on those blades so if it was particularly cold or this was cutting through the conductors inside the
the cable you won't have to adjust it so if i go up to maximum pressure you'll see what happens
on this cable here you can see it actually chops the end up so too much too much pressure
again draw that you'll see here so i would have to adjust that under those circumstances so we
don't uh completely destroy the cable so we're going close there you can see all of the cores
are intact also when we look at another common application terminating things like
the fly leads that we find on the RCBOs the manufacturers sometimes use exotic material
so this is a very flexible class 6 conductor with a silicon outer sheath you might need
to adjust the depth of that if it was cutting through individual cores a great application
for this tool is when you're shortening the leads on our RCBO in this case an AFDD
so we've got an expensive one here so we can just chop the old ferrule off strip to length
i put a slight twist in to restore what was in the conductor in the first place then we
select our ferrule now today we're on the the German din 246228 standard so we know
that's a grey ferrule we're looking for got one on the bench here biggest challenge and
this is my eyes so just put that in there slightly twist the ferrule as we go on
bring our tool in and here's the really clever bit that ferrule crimper underneath it's the maximum
size that we'll do four millimeter squared in we go there we go ferrule connection uh do you like
the copper sticking out the end or not i've just got a tiny bit out there comment uh what you think
of that but again give that the old tug test and that is not coming off so four millimeters
the biggest size ferrule that we'll do at the other end of the scale we'll do point two five
millimeter square so we're gonna put some on this security cable here so i'll just tidy the ends up
with the cable cutter and then we'll not do that one because that's the plastic bedding
material let's pick this blue one here set this to six millimeters for the ferrule
and the smallest one here is this light blue one so we've had to step out of the German din system
back into Weidmuller here and the biggest problem here is my eyes getting this in there so just
excuse me on that push that in there and then into our ferrule crimper
nice and easy and again that's well well ferruled you get that well ferruled
will ferrules you can also fit twin ferrules up to 2 by 2.5 millimeter squared so i'll just prepare
one of those here so just it was a little bit more tricky to judge the correct wire length
when you're stripping back the outer insulation on the twin so there's a bit
more copper shown at the end but let's crimp it first and then deal with that
you know the feral crimper nice nice square rectangular crimp i'll just deal with that
excess copper with the Super Knips so this tool is a no-brainer for people who do a lot of panel work
with that cut strip ferrule function but i think it's good for general electricians who possibly
the occasional ferruler if you're in consumer units if you're possibly putting something into
a fuse spur again you can just easily prepare your flexible cables you might need to shorten the lead
really tactile tool put the ferrules on there's good uh there's consumable parts for it you can
get replacement blades you can get a different uh you can get a replacement depth stop if you
lose that but again just slip those ferrules on there now it is really simple and i'm
not picking up multiple tools um so i think this is a keeper and so much so that Knipex
have give you an area you can put your name on so i'm just going to fill in my initials there since
the rest of the team aren't around and i think i will be keeping this you can attach a lanyard
to this as well if you're someone who drops their tools so you don't hit people on the head so this
is going in my toolbox if you want another keeper check out the Knipex Super Knips which are great
combination if you need to do again fine work with wires like most of the world we're working
in metric but if you flip this too low you can go to the past as what we call american wire gauge