Hydraulic Cable Crimpers - Dirt Cheap !

[Christian Van H]

Hi all! I've come across several sellers on eBay now featuring this item:
http://cgi.ebay.com/New-8-Ton-Hydrau...b#ht_768wt_732

If these things work at all they should be worth 4X the price! Has anyone here tried these out yet? Am I going to have to be the first? Go ahead, twist my arm...

[FrankZ]

Make sure to give us a full report once you try them.

[Christian Van H]

I knew I would have to be first...

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Christian Van H

... If these things work at all they should be worth 4X the price...

I'll be surprised!

Greenlee’s 8 & 12 Ton (manual pump) Hydraulic Crimpers go for over $1,200 (less dies).
Burndy’s 6 ton tool goes for about $1,400 (less dies).

[Christian Van H]

So, GordMay, you've thrown down the glove. Drawn a line in the sand. Well I say "Enough!". I must eBay like the wind...

[fishwife]

OMG, If these work I'm going to be soooo annoyed.

P.

[Christian Van H]

BE PREPARED! They were $57.90 with shipping. We'll see...expect a report with pics. I wish Maine Sail could help. His weblogs are excellent!

[Christian Van H]

Here's a pic. Also, I found this website that could be the manufacturer: YueQing Vanfo Electric Co.,Ltd-Crimping Tools|Crimp Tools|Pex Crimp Tools|Wire Stripper|Cable Cutter|PVC Pipe Cutter|Cable Tie Tool|Wiring Accessories WOW! That's alot of CRIMPERS!!!

[Christian Van H]

OMG! They make cheap cutters for rigging too! YueQing Vanfo Electric Co.,Ltd-Crimping Tools|Crimp Tools|Pex Crimp Tools|Wire Stripper|Cable Cutter|PVC Pipe Cutter|Cable Tie Tool|Wiring Accessories

[Maine Sail]

I think HFT sells the same one. A buddy just ordered a lug crimper from HFT and the 1/0 die did not fit his heavy duty 1/0 lug. It may work and it may not be properly sized. Some of these off shore crimpers are sized for the light weight crimp lugs used in home wiring or the auto industry, SAE wire not AWG, or even sized for metric ga wire.

The heavy dudty lugs for marine use are considerably bigger than the stuff some of these crimpers dies were designed for so you may need to go to the next size die, not the best practice IMHO.

Personally I prefer to match my crimper to my lugs thus I use an FTZ crimper with FTZ color coded lugs. I will sometimes use Quick Cables color coded lugs too as they are the same standard size as FTZ's. The Ancor lugs, as of late, have become a little thin IMHO and do not compare to the ones I use from FTZ or Quick Cable so I stopped using them. This on top of the offensive price of about 500% more than I pay for FTZ or Quick Cable lugs makes not using Ancor an easy choice..

Personally I prefer to not take chances with high amp crimps. The AMP Rota-Crimp is expensive but nice. The Quck Cable Hex Crimp crimper can be had for about $185.00 and the FTZ CorrectCrimp #94284 crimper for about $150.00..

Next time I go by HFT I may grab one just to satisfy my curiosity..

Let us know how it works, we want photos!

[Christian Van H]

Thanks, Mainsail for the heads up. I intend to use Ancor brand terminals 'cause I've got them lying around. The crimper is listed as AWG, but who knows. I like your method of crimping, then slicing through the crimp to look for compression of the individual strands. We'll soon find out!

[Christian Van H]

Well, the crimpers arrived. Funny thing, although I bought from an eBay retailer, the package was drop shipped from Harbor Freight! Just saved a few dollars...but anything to scrimp a little. So, attached find pics of the crimper, the Camco and Ancor 00 heavy duty lugs and the finished crimps. I sliced them with a Dremel after crimping. Honestly, I like both the tool and the crimps. Using the tool and these lugs, only one crimp is made, about 1/4 inch wide. The crimper seems to compress the individual strands to the point where you cannot differentiate strands at all. It's hard to be sure, as the cut-off wheel changes things a bit. Using the crimper, there is no definite stop at crimps end. It just gets REALLY hard to continue. Also, please be aware that these Ancor / Camco lugs are at the upper limits of what this tool can handle. Any larger and the lugs simply wont fit into the magnetic dies. I'm perfectly happy with the Camco lugs...at half the price ($2.00 ea.) of the Ancor brand and almost indistinguishable. With the addition of adhesive lined shrink tubing I think these terminals would offer long service and great conduction. End of review.

PS; the dies go from 12Ga. to 00 AWG

[Sailndive345]

Thanks for the review - it certainly seems worth looking into... Now, when were you planning on trying out the (rigging) cutters again???

Sailndive

[CharlieJ]

I just got mine today and it will be on the job tomorrow crimping AWG 2, 4 and 6 on a commercial fishing boat. For the 1/0 to 4/0 work, I will continue to use my 12 ton hydraulic crimper by Huskie Tools.

[duncan_ellison]

I got one of these a while back from Ebay in the UK, primarily to do winch power cabling for my SUV, but now on my boat in case of need (in the US).

The dies are marked in sq. mm rather than AWG and I did find it hard to match the exact die with US lugs, but seems to do a decent enough job.

On one job, I had to grind down the flats of the die a bit to get enough bite on the lug.

For bigger crimps though it's a push and since I have some 3/0's to do I also found a 15 Ton model on Ebay for not much more $$s, same far east quality, but more than adequate for the occasion job I do.

What I hadn't thought about though is using it as a cable cutter, I now need to figure out how to manufacture a 'die' set with a hardened blade to convert it.

Duncan
S/Y TALISA