Crimp Tool: the Quality of the Tooling Will Determine the Quality of the Crimp Design

Crimp tools are devices that connect two items using compressive force to alter, connect, deform, bend or cut two different components. They are most commonly used in the electrical and metallurgic industry and can be divided into two categories: hand operated (the most frequently used) and powered (use pressurized hydraulic fluid and are used for joints that are too resilient to crimp by hand).

In this article we will pay attention to hand crimp tools in particular – their varieties, uses, different shapes and designs. One of the most important things to look out for when buying a crimp tool is the ergonomics of it – meaning the handles should be patented well, it should have interchangeable die sets, and a great life span. If using a battery powered crimp tool, the battery life needs to be taken into consideration as well. There is a wide variety of shapes and sizes when it comes to crimping tools, here are a few that you may come come in contact with:

Ratchet

The ratchet crimp isn’t very expensive and it can be used to achieve a good crimp relatively easy. It can have “jaws” underneath as a feature, so if you’re looking to buy one of these, make sure it has them.

Electrical

This is by far the most commonly used crimp as it can be used for basically everything – from crimping to stripping. It is a battery powered device which provides consistent crimping to terminals in a mobile form factor.

Manual

The most inexpensive, effective crimp. It is quite convenient and it has interchangeable die-sets.

Benchtop Manual Crimp

This one is attached on top of a bench, it is similarly used as normal manual crimp, with the difference that it requires much less force to use.

Benchtop Electrical

This crimp uses a fixated speed motor and produces quality crimps. It is very efficient and is capable of producing over 2 000 connections per hour.

Other parts that are used in the crimping process are a wire and a terminal. The terminal size is universal and can work with multiple sized wires, which also come in a wide variety. To sum it all up, these are some of the things to be taken into consideration when crimping. There can also be dedicated crimp tools or multipurpose ones. Professionals are leaning towards dedicated crimping tools, as they tend to be more specialized in a certain operation in order to increase the quality of the crimp.