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Crimping pins with the cheap tools is fine for most work
I keep seeing guys at the O'Hare hangar shelling out $300+ for fancy crimpers when the $40 ones from the tool truck do the same job on shielded twisted pair. Did a full D-sub rebuild on a CRJ900 last month with a basic ratcheting crimper and zero faults on the continuity test. Why does everyone think expensive tools guarantee better connections?
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felix_black19d ago
Man, I think people overlook how much technique matters over the tool itself. I worked with a guy who could do perfect pins with a $15 dollar Harbor Freight special because he actually paid attention to wire strip length and depth. Meanwhile another guy spent $400 on a fancy Deutsch crimper and still mashed half his pins because he wasn't consistent on his hand pressure. It's like blaming your wrench for a stripped bolt when you're the one forcing it. The skill and the feel for the wire is way more important than what brand is stamped on the handle.
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the_kim19d ago
Watched a buddy spend two hours trying to figure out why his fancy German crimper kept failing pins on a 737 panel, turns out he was using the wrong die insert the whole time and just bent the handles. Reminds me of that time I tried using a torque wrench that cost more than my car to snug up a bolt and ended up stripping it because I forgot to zero it out first. Bottom line is you still gotta know what you're doing no matter how much you spent on the tool.
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