How to Crimp Various Electrical Wires: Beginner and Expert Tutorial

in tonight's video I'm gonna teach you guys how to crimp and solder different kinds of connectors to wires because a lot of people do not understand how to take this wire and connect it to a terminal connector if you can connect these two pieces together you can use wire to connect various components and build all sorts of electrical projects before we get started let's talk about what tools are required to crimp these connectors first we have a three point crimper over here and this is for large wires such as for odd gauge so if you have a large inverter or some big thick cables this is what we use if you want a cheaper method of crimping large wire connectors we can use a hammer type crimp and this is only $20 and you use a hammer with it to crimp large terminals next we have a ratcheting crimper and this works from 22 gauge up to 10 gauge so for small wires this works really well these two are for odd situations if I can't use my other crimpers I will use these I have this one right here and this one right here what you do not want to do is use pliers to crimp that is bad do not use this that is not a true crimper you need an actual crimper next we have wire strippers I like to use this one for large wires and then I like to use this one for small wires up to ten gauge I also have cable cutters and if you're careful and you know what you're doing you can use these as a wire stripper but I don't recommend most beginners doing this because you could hurt the wire itself but it can be very useful if you know how next let's talk about the connectors we're going to use you want to use a high quality connector with high quality gate shrink if you buy the cheap ones from Walmart you will have problems and those will go bad making cause of fire these ones I bought on Amazon and the heat shrink has glue on the inside and when you heat it up it works really well so I highly recommend using these kinds of crimp connectors when I use larger gauge wires I like to get them without insulation and I like to either add my own insulation or add electrical tape so these are four four six and eight gauge wires with various bolt stud size holes and then this is for a two gauge wire and we have the Anderson power pole connectors and you crimp these little pieces before you make it and then you slide the connector on second and we'll go over that and then we have xt60 connectors back here and I'm going to teach you guys how to solder this this is a side demonstration at the end of the video that some of you guys might find useful but that will be pretty fun but the whole point of this video is learning how to crimp different sizes of wires because some videos only cover large wires but this video will cover large wires and small wires we're also going to go down to a 16 gauge wire they also have a 10 gauge wire we have an inline fuse and a 10 gauge and we're going to use a special connector to connect these two together so yeah let's get started for the first example let's imagine that we're taking a 10 gauge wire and we want to connect it to this fuse box first we need to find the right terminal connector so if you go over here to a box of terminal connectors you will find the one that's shaped like this and this fits the input terminal really nicely it's the right size and this is the right gauge wire for this fuse so what we need to do is connect this wire to this connector so first we're gonna strip this wire just a little bit just enough for the metal to go inside of the connector and come out the other end and you can see up close that the insulation goes all the way up to the metal and you want to be a perfect fit the distance in here is how much conductor of the wire should be exposed next we need to crimp it so we're going to take a ratcheting crimper and see how there is a yellow mark well this is a yellow terminal connector what we do is we put it inside of there and you can remove the wire and look at the inside of it and then you can watch it go in well it's in the ratcheting crimper and then you squeeze it really hard and then after you do the termination you pull it and make sure it cannot come out it should look like this it also has insulation so we're gonna use our stove to heat this up and shrink it so this part is pretty simple all you have to do is expose it to a heat source you can use a heat gun a lighter or whatever you have on hand I have my stove and it works really well just get it nice and hot but don't burn it don't put it too close to the flame give it a few seconds to get hot you can see how the heat shrink shrink up around the wire and it looks really nice let it cool for a second though before you touch it now that the connector is connected to the wire we can unscrew this terminal all the way push the connector inside where it's supposed to be and then screw it down and it should look like that after you put it on there you should feel and make sure it will not come off it should be super strong and that's it that's how you connect 18 gauge wire to a fuse box now we're going to remove this crimp connection and add this one so first what we want to do is cut it just like that and make sure it's flush and flat now what we need to do is measure and mark where we need to cut this insulation because this wire is going to go up to about here we're gonna cut it right about here and then we're going to use a wire stripper to remove this insulation and if you did it properly none of the wires should have come off it should be nice and flat now we can put the terminal connector over the wire and see if it is a good size and that's perfect I got really lucky with that that is how you want it to look now that the wire stripped we can put the connector inside of the tool and you just want to tighten down enough just to hold it there next we want to put the wires inside the connector and make sure that everything is nice and tight once the connector is in there you can add your wrench or impact gun I like using the impact gun because it's easy so now we want to put the wire inside of the connector and make sure that everything looks good over here look at everything make sure it's set properly now you can tighten it down so this is a pretty big one so I'm gonna have to use a wrench and once you hit a point where it's really hard to tighten that means that it is completely terminated and there is a true cold weld so then loosen it and there you guys have it a full true cold weld termination and if you pull it there is no way that this is going to come apart now the next step is to use heat shrink and protect this connection you will need to do is buy the proper size heat shrink for the application and use a heat gun measure and cut a piece of heat shrink and use some scissors to cut it off and this is what it should look like also notice where the heat shrink goes up - you don't want to go in too far so that it would obstruct the connector and you don't want it going too far back down this way because you want to protect this joint for the next example we're going to learn how to use a hammer type crimper with the other end of the two gage wire first we need to strip the wire after we measure in market so this is too short I messed up I need to remove more insulation and now it looks perfect so we can crimp this connection so this is pretty straightforward you just put inside of the hammer type crimper and before we whack you with a hammer make sure that the wire is in there because they can slip out when you're hitting it with a hammer I like to hold the wire there while I'm hitting it you can tell that it actually terminated because it will you'll hear a thud it will change sound and of course we need to check it so you need to yank on it and this is a good termination but you can tell that there's some space right here because the hammer type crimper when you're hammering it can push the wire out a little bit and that's not good but this is totally acceptable so I'm gonna cover it with electrical tape and it's job done and this is what it should look like after you wrap it up with electrical tape if you were doing a professional job or you're doing marine application or aerospace you need to use the proper heat shrink for whatever regulation you need to follow for most people though black electrical tape works great now we're going to use these two tools to connect an inline fuse to a 10 gauge wire and we're going to use one of these crimp connectors also keep in mind use the appropriate connector for the size of wire that we're using this is 10 gauge and we're connecting it to 10 gauge this is made for 10 gauge wire it will work so first I stripped both ends and it's just enough to fit inside this crimp connector so what you want to do first is put inside the crimp connector but put it only on one side on one half of the crimp connector because we can only do one wire at a time then stick the wire in and then press down but make sure that you hold the wire there so it doesn't move while you're pushing down and this is what it should look like now that we have this half done we can put the tool on the other half of the crimp connector and put the other wire inside it just like that and try to hold the wire while you're doing this so it doesn't fall out this is what it should look like it's very important though to check because it should be solid if you do it right and that looks good this is the type of insulation that you don't heat up so it's done this is good for the next demonstration we're going to connect a 16 gauge wire to it's appropriate connector that goes to I think a 3/8 inch stud hole and these ones are pretty simple you just have to make sure that you can rip the right amount off and then you verify that it's in the hole and then use the crimp tool to smash it and that's it this one has heat shrink those so we can put it over the stove and this is what it should look like you guys can notice how the heat shrink really conforms to the shape of the connector and to the wire that's when you buy a high quality heat shrink that's why it's so important to use the right stuff if you were to buy cheap heat shrink it does not look as pretty now let's do a quick 6 gauge terminal connector so first strip the wire and it should look like this this one has a really thick insulation so it looks a little funny but it works it also has a small hole where you can see if the wire made it all the way through and it does it came right up to the hole so this is a perfect amount of conductor so we could use my other methods but I'm going to use this tool because I love it this connector is too big for that tool so I need to use something else BAM just like that oh that's perfect I love it looks perfect and I just found some heat-shrink for this size of wire so we can use it make sure that you do not put the heat shrink all the way up this far or something silly you want to write it about there and that's the finished product it looks really nice and clean now we're going to do Anderson power pole connector so we have a 12 gauge wire and we stripped it and it fits perfectly just like that and this is the crimper that I like to use with Anderson power poles also the Anderson power pole you can see if the wires made it all the way through this is how it should look inside of the crimper and then you just squeeze and that is a solid crimp and so in order to put this little crimp connector inside the power pole thing I like to look at the picture on line to figure out which way it's supposed to go because there's only one way so look at the picture and then line up the connector like this and then push it really hard inside and you should snap together alright guys I finally got it in there after it's in there you need to feel it and test if it will pull out if it's strong and doesn't pull out it's good to go and after you do one you can do a second one and put them together just like this and you can also buy the pins that fit inside that little hole and you'll hold them together permanently and then you can also add another two wires on the other end and then you can fit these two together don't fit these two together until you have the wires and crimpers in all of them and then they will push together and fit really snug and that's it that's how you crimp an Anderson power pole connector alright guys thank you so much for watching I hope you guys found this tutorial useful if you have any questions or comments please leave them below I hope this helps out a lot of you guys especially beginners scared to do this kind of stuff once you get it down it's very easy and actually kind of fun so yeah thanks for watching and I'll talk to you guys later bye okay this one's going to be a pain in the but we have to solder a xt60 connector and we need to use this kind because it's a battery or the source but what you don't want to do is get the battery hot when you're doing this and you want to do one lead at a time so you don't short the battery out so this is a little challenging and then we want to put the xt60 connector in a vise and an important reason to have this connector inside of a vise is to dissipate heat from the soldering connection we want to get hot enough so that it makes a good solder joint but we don't want to get hot enough where it will melt all this plastic so right now I have it held in place with one hand but how am I going to put the soldering iron and solder on here so what I like to do when doing these xt60 connectors so I like to tend the tip of the soldering iron after I clean it and get a nice little wallop of solder on there and then I put it directly on the joint while the wire is inside oh it's not working because so I'm going to tin the tip and then put some solder inside the joint and see if that helps because this one is not working so now we tend the tip and we put some solder inside the xc60 so we're going to heat up the xc60 and then push it inside there when it's hot in molten and not for very long and now you got to let it cool because it's SuperDuper hot and that's what it should look like now we can put the heat shrink on all the way now this lead will be protected after we heat it up and this is what it should look like when you heat up the heat shrink now that this lead is protected and heat shrink now we can do the positive lead so first let's tin the tip and then we can put it inside of our vise again so do do this properly heat up the connector first till it's liquid and then heat up this at the same time and then push that wire in there make sure it doesn't get too hot make sure it gets shiny so it does a good one and then take it off this one was good and it's shiny all the way around so there's a good soldering job but this heat shrink got too hot so I can't really move it so we need to wait till it cools and then cut off this piece and then push it up and this is what it looks like after you clean up the heat shrink so part of it was already hardened and small so I cut it off and then I slid the good part up and then I heated it up so this is what it should look like this is a completed soldering job for an xt60 connector the hardest part with these is making it so it doesn't heat up this and melt it because you want it to get hot enough so solder can flow but you don't want to get in so hot than it damages the connector and damage the battery because the heat can conduct through this wire into the battery and if it gets too hot it can damage the battery pack so that's not good and this was sure wires because I messed it up from a crash a long time ago and I never got to it but yeah this is what should look like and this is good

Channel: DIY Solar Power with Will Prowse

Views: 144,404

Keywords: how to crimp wire, diy crimp wire

Id: dTYyMwbSK7I

Length: 15min 33sec (933 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 27 2018