Tutorial: How to crimp connectors, strip wire and use heat shrink.

Oh yeah yeah Oh yeah tester . code . UK hello YouTube is and welcome to this tutorial on crimping connectors pass a better heat shrink the use of tools to strip wire and how best to actually get your wire properly into your connectors so it makes a good sound connection and is mechanically strong as well so that's what I hope to achieve in this video I'm going to go through some of the mistakes that I have certainly made in the past with connecting connectors and wires together i'm also going to point down below to a very good reference and NASA reference which will be online forum for discussion for those of you who might have bitter pause wisdom after seeing this video and after you've seen this video if you think you have some important advice or a better way of doing things certainly do constant a person comment below or even posting a video response showing how you think it should be done or even showing where it's gone wrong because that would be really handy too but anyway let's get down to the bench right so invariably if you're working with either electrical or electronics there comes a time when it's really handy to have a crimp on connector to for full a certain function you may want to have a wire that can go on to a battery terminal you may want to join too wise with either Spade connectors on two batteries so there are loads of uses but if it's done incorrectly things can go awry case in point here i have a homemade fuse holder and an automated few that i use in their system eyes using to monitor current and voltage for my solar panel and things can go very wrong quickly and the this could result in a fire so that's what you want to be real so what I hope to cover in this video is just to give a demonstration of some of the tools which might be handy and a demonstration of cut some of the wiring and the crimps and the best practice that i know of in terms of joining a crimp connector to a piece of wire and what you need to be aware of now we're going to pick up because even this piece of why that i have in my head which is a fairly large piece of wire there are potentially issues with this connector and the way it's been done on this wire but we'll cover that off but let's start off with the piece of wire and actually stripping it right so what you probably end up with in is you have a piece of wire and you have a connector a crimp connector that you want to attach to your end of wire so that you can either connected to a battery or have you so the first thing we need to do is strip the piece of wire said you got the conducting expose second go into the actual crimp connector itself ultimately this is what we want to end up with is a the installation being cleanly removed with all your conductors intact so you've got the maximum cross-sectional area of your conductor that goes into your crimp so that you don't lose the amp icity the ability for the wire to carry a good parent without any issues of resistance or heat while it's in the crimp connector not only that if you don't do this correctly and you don't have enough conductor hear your actual mechanical holding of this into the crimp connector can be an issue and believe it or not crimping can be a far better solution than soldiering so you get a very good strong mechana connect connection and electrical connection if it's done correctly right so let's look at how we potentially strip this wire now then i'm going to show you the tools at you might potentially consider I've used them in the past you might get a pair of pliers and you've got the cutters and what we invariably try and do is get the catters and trying to strip the wire that when invariably I probably don't have to show you what's gonna happen when you do that you invariably start cutting a few the conductors and using shards all over the place couple of debt . so danger there shards are big copper like this if they fall into something you work a project that you're working on nearby or intern appliance they can cause a short and that's one issue and I'll see then they don't provide enough of a conductor to properly carry the current that you require then you can end up with a cheaper crimping tool like this one over here and as you can see it actually says why stripper over here and it has the little holes where you can go and strip the wire so what you would do is obviously place the wire in there squeeze it and then remove the covering but invariably with these types of strippers if you use and carefully that can be fine but you can still be a challenge do it correctly to remove the actual installation from the wire itself so what I have found to be a really valuable tool is to go and find yourself a good kind of what i'd call automated why stripper it has a mechanical grip to grip the wire over here as you squeeze down it's got the correct size holes and then you use it and it strips off the insulation so let's just give that a bash so if i put it there I know I've got to use the biggest hole then you want to test this if you're not to show the whole tested make sure that it works correctly so a GCS to put in it bites down it's also gripping the wire the back here and as I do it there you go it's pulled off the insulation there's no free wise which have been broken off in there I've got all my conductors intact ready to use so i can really recommend this for one for doing it correctly for two of you got a lot of why that you're stripping it becomes a pain trying to do it do it mechanically with a pair of pliers or side cutters this makes life a lot easier right so now we get to the next point where we've got a crimp connector I've got my wire which I have nicely stripped and now I want two off c place it in there and crimp it together but I've got a slight problem my conductor seems to be bigger than the actual gauge or the opening on my crimp connector now how many times would you try and twist that on to force it in to get it in there and then try and crimp it or even and I've done this you can see what happens it starts to birdcage you get a thinner piece of conductor that goes into the crimp connector you potentially have weisberg caging up on the side here which can act as a short hazard if they're out on the side and invariably what can be done is you get a set of strippers and you try and strip out some of that extra wire to like to fit into your connector and the two issues there for one you've obviously reduce the current carrying capability of this piece of wire and potentially mechanically you may have an issue with how well it's held inside your connector so you do want to sign find the right size connector this one's too small right so that was too small so I've now found a nice beefy solid legand crimp connector and it certainly does have a nice gauge opening and look my conductor fits in there very nicely but it's a little loose so I tell you what there's a practice solution to this let me show you it doesn't mean I have to strip a little more of the installation of four wire but let's see how we go so first off there is one risk now when i'm trying to strip the wire the second time and not doing it correctly I'm potentially going to lose some of those conductors which are really important so my idea is that I can i should be able to just fall this over and it should create a far tighter fit now there's a couple of risks with doing this if I really mechanically been this and squeeze it I know I'll get it inside the slag but that potentially doesn't create the proper full fit inside the actual crimp connector itself and it may mechanically compromise the actual tight fit inside here so that you certain you don't want to do you also don't want to go and fold the copper over the insulation and let's say we've got a bigger leg like this so you go and fold it over so that you can then for sit inside and use actual insulation on the wire as part of the holding because now you've reduced the surface area of the conductor that's actually going to attach the inside of this connector and again potentially compromised the mechanical grip once you've actually crimp this so it's something you certainly don't want to do also the one important point whether it's with a leg like this if you get any bird caging and these wires poking out the bottom again huge risk for shorting something else especially if you got legs close together and these are dangling about like that you certainly don't want to do that right so I've gone and found a crimp connector which I think matches perfectly this piece of wire if we look inside the gate seems to be about right if I insert the actual wire and conductor it goes in without bird caging it seems to have a nice snack fit as you can see what you do want to achieve with this isn't it is to ensure that your conduct it does poke out just a little bit on the side in the front end of your connector you don't want you to extend too much or auras going to interfere with the connection over here and that's an issue and particularly i'll show you just now with the battery like connectors if they extend too much and use putting us on a battery you're not going to get the full mechanical contact and that's electrical contact when you actually got a connected to let their battery now then I know that this wire is six in terms of the cross-sectional area it's six millimeters squared so in terms of a gauge it sits around nine or ten now then so the one thing to look for even though this mechanically does fit in nicely one wants to be sure that this can is off see made for that gauge and can carry the current because this can carry a fair amount of current so what you want to look for is on the connector itself you can select these connectors by the gauge why they're designed for and if you can read on the bottom that actually says 12 to 10 so I'm just within the limits of the the wire fitting in here and being out to be mechanically held correctly and being able to carry the current load on yes that's something you want to look for you want to look for the gauge that the American wire gauge rating on your connectors and ensure that you matching matching up the gauge of wire correctly on to this rights our next chore is to go and crimp use find a crimping tools so you can actually crimp a connector onto this wire now there's a few things to note you also do get the the cheaper tools and fair enough they can work this one happens to be noted in metrics or what its noting here is the size across sectional sighs so four to six millimeters squared which obviously relates to this connector over here there's also color coding as you can see on these tools this tool also color-coded said you can easily match up you can see the yellow connector over there we've got the blue for the smaller cross-sectional area and you can go down to read as well now these tools aren't this one over here does not have a ratchet system so you have to apply a lot of mechanical force and muscle sometimes to try and get something cream together especially with the larger conductors and sometimes that can mean you kind of match things up you don't apply equal pressure or you get tired and you just don't do it correctly so certainly it's very handy getting a wretched tool which can open up you can hear the ratchet you can then place the tool in with the wire and you then crimp it together and as you krimpet a ratchet is holding so even if you're getting tired and you need to release it will still hold it tight you can then continue and finish the actual krumping process so let's give that a bachelor this one so I what I tend to do with this because it can be a bit of a fiddly job if you've obviously got a few hands the one thing you want to note also on this crimp before we put it in there your crimping the top it's got its design for the top to be crimped not the bottom so you cramping from the top to get a good mechanical connection in there so you get a good all-round electrical connection with this as well so on this tool is quite handy it fits in quite nicely in the setting over here I just close it enough so that it's grips it's not being crashed that allows me to free my one hand so then insert the wire as I insert the wire I'm ensuring that it's not going to a bird cage or pull any of the the actual wires back if it is i need to pull it back and correct that it's gone in you can see it at the tip there and I'm not in a position where i can grab this making sure this dance the part I've grabbed it it's now physically held it now I've got a problem I don't have strong hair so if me to crimp this with one hand is an issues I just crimped enough for it not to fall out in the right place i can grab two hands and finish off the process and it only allows you to release once you're done so here we go and what you want to do and check and i'm going to show you this on camera there seems to be a fairly nice even distribution of the cryptic crimping tool on this connector the way it fits into that tool is to ensure that it does crimp and grab in the right places it crimps the actual plastic at the back here so that it's there's a bit of strain relief on the connection and also ensures that it pushes down the actual metal part of the connector to actually mechanically grab that why nicely and you do want to check that once you've got a crimped on you want to give it a good old tag and make sure there's no plan there and that is not going to come off there's a few things you want to be wary of with these smaller legs or connectors and that mechanically sometimes the crimping tool can damage them you can see this one is slightly bent and actually need to be aware of because of its bending your cramps you may not have the right crimp or may not have the right size and that may cause a fatigue or fracture here and that you certainly don't want right now let's have a look at this example this is a fairly hefty piece of cable it would be it's something which is perhaps particularly designed to be used on a DC battery it's 10 millimeters squared so this can probably handle a hundred amps DCMS through this it's also got a silicone coating on it and that's something to be aware of in your why selection because the silicone coating can handle higher temperatures you certainly don't want to be in that situation where you are catering for higher temperatures you want to get the correct gauge for the country handling but silicon certainly does give you a little bit of belts and braces a bit of safety margin now there's a couple issues with this whole setup here as you can see this is a a kind of green and yellow piece of cable and this strictly speaking should be used as an earth because the color but I didn't have I couldn't get hold of a red cable so as you can see i just went stuck a label on yet and called it positive now there's a few issues of that for one someone else Martin might not be easily spot this and realize that it's positive and that could create a bit of an issue - I've used a leg on here which obviously fits but mechanically it's not very strong you can see how can bend it and we've got a fairly heavy piece of wire on here and that invariably can create its own hassles we just want to make sure that for one can this like actually carry that the potential hundred amps that would be passing through here and if this is connected on a battery and it's heavy and this is happening well guess what in time this leg is going to break off also won one method of getting around this issue where I couldn't find the right cave would be still let's a get a good long piece of heat shrink red heat shrink so that identifies that it's the positive cable that might be a bit of a French but might be one we're doing it but you can't see through this heat shrink and there is potentially another problem if someone needs to inspect these legs to make sure they're fine you can see on this one I've got the conductor sitting a bit very on the side there but you have no real easy way of inspecting it and that's where there's a good call for transparent heat shrink so here we go as you can see you do get transparent heat shrink and that is certainly advisable in many situations where you want to have easy inspection of your connections after you've actually put them together allows you to see there's any issue you might have a situation where things are getting hot under here and things are going a right and you're not going to see it because it's happening underneath the heat shrink whereas a good transparent heat shrink will allow you to do that another note some people might think that it's a good idea to get a soldiering iron and solder and 10 the end of the wire to keep it all meet and together before they place it into a connector and krimpet but that actually is a big no-no and the reason behind that is that that hard solder when you put it in yet potentially is going to have little peaks and ridges which you can't even see and it won't make a good mechanical and electrical connector connection inside your actual crimp connector here so you don't want to solve your your YN beforehand you do want the conductor's to be free so they can all be crimped together inside there and make a good connection with the surrounding barrel of your connector right so here we go i have this really nice big 50 piece of wire and I've got some nice - heavy-duty legs here far better than this cheaper one which is potentially going to fatigue and and split and cause an issue so these are nice and solid they will also carry a lot of kind but that's what you need to go and check is to check the specification of your legs compared to the wire that you're using now if we have a look at this bigger one as you can see the actual gauge is very big and too big you can see that bounces around it might mechanically be gripped in there once I krimpet but obviously the the strength of that mechanical hold and the electrical connection there is potentially an issue so let's go have a look at this like which seems to be sighs better so if i put that on we can see that it goes in and what you do want to ensure you don't want you want to ensure that you've got the conductor going into your leg properly some legs and connectors will have an inspection window some have them on the top some I have them on the front and that should allow you to see whether your conductor is pushed down in there firmly and we'll have a good grip not on here you can see I've got a bit of an end where the insulation is back should I have that so it goes right into the leg no because if it goes right in there again it can compromise the kind of grip when you actually crimp it on there and also again reduce the surface area of the contact of the conductor contacting with the actual like itself so you do want a little bit of the wiring and conduct exposed at the end here so that the installation does not get in the way of the actual leg but obviously you also don't want too much and in this case i'd say probably got a little bit too much exposed so what we want to do is have this the right length and then if we need to insulate it that's when we're going to use our heat shrink right so I've gone and ensured that you now the conductor's cut to the right length so that it does for nice and snuggly down to the tip or the end of the actual like it's at stopping there and the installation is just about right up against but it's certainly not going inside the actual leg itself so at least I've got that little bit exposed to show that nothing is getting in in the where the actual like itself so the next thing i want to crimp it on there and then we want to consider putting some heat-shrink on it right and again it always helps having the right tools for the job just like it is having the a nice set of why strippers if i was to try and battle with a pair of pliers or or what happy to try and crimp this I'd seriously be straining myself and also not get the good mechanical and electrical connection that we want with this so again I've got a nice set of rested crimpers they're nice and heavy duty and it makes doing this a nice chore nice long handles to give you the leverage and obviously the ratcheting system which ensures that it it will hold even if you have to release pressure for any reason right so I've got my writing to already have selected the right size on there so that the actual leg sits in there and his grip firmly I've got the actual tool which is going to cause the indent and actually cause the mechanical grip on the wire right in the middle of the leg if you do have an inspection hole on top you do not want to do it on top of the inspection whole to deform it you want to do it away from that but still in a good place where you got good purchase and it's going to grab the conductor so here we go I've got that and now i'm going to crimp it so there we go I've got it crimped it is relatively well placed in the center the from the inspection window I can still see that my conduct is sitting at the end it hasn't slept out and that's a value of having a little inspection window on your life because it might have slipped back during the process and you won't realize it but here we can quite Casey the conductor's right up against the end it's got a very good mechanical strength in there so that looks as a it went really well so next is the heat shrink now one little thing to note and 41 I don't have a nice piece of transparent heat shrink which is going to fit this but that's ideally what we want to do but i'm going to use either the red or the black but of course what you want to do before you crimp your connector on you want to have your heat shrink on their ready because it might not fit over the leg so just note that you are not your heat shrink on first unless you can get it on from the back of the cable itself or otherwise you're going to be stack right so I've got my heat shrink on the actual wire itself and i want to place it so that it goes over here why do I want heat shrink on yet well for one it can obviously act as a form of insulation around just the top of the connector here if you don't want this to come into contact with there anything else to believe it or not the heat shrink acts as a mechanical form of strain relief at the end here as well it does help a little bit to prevent the kind of there's any flicks on the wire it adds a little more support so that you don't get a breaking over here on your conductor so when we put this heat shrink on to the actual leg itself how far do we go so if i had to put the sheet shrink right up to there and put it on it will certainly give nice coverage and it's got a good area of here to provide strain relief however if this is going on a battery terminal and I've gone and reduce the contact surface over here I then created less contact area so potentially I've got a higher resistance and this area for the current flow through so you don't want to remove or take away from the contact area you've got here you want to move back so at least you've got the same area that you've got over here and a nice bit of contact area here when you connect it onto your battery's dead obviously don't get too far back if you wanted to covering over here but again the one issue with this is that it's opaque so you cannot see the connector after the fact anyway let's get the heat shrink on their rights i'm ready to heat my heat shrink to get on there and I'm pulling out my trusty little butane lighter and right so I've got a flame and off I go now there's something else want to highlight i've been using this for a while to do my heat shrinking there are a few issues that it doesn't provide a nice uniform heat source in terms to get this shrink on here nicely it takes a lot of work and heat the light to get hot which is not a good idea and potentially going to burn and split your heat shrink which is what you don't want it's acceptable y-you heating your heat shrink to have a little discoloration but you certainly don't want any kind of charring or anything else because you do want to note that after this is installed if you've got major discoloration you're not going to know whether there's an issue in its operation or whether it's done from when it was applied so you don't want any real charring or splitting of this because that can be a sign that something's wrong when it's in operation so you want to go on a relatively uniform in color without too much discoloration so what I do for that I happen to have an old paint stripper again which I use you do of course get guns and equipment which are meant for heating evenly but anyway this seems to that do the job well for me right so that I have been quite easily what you want to be aware of is you do want to plan a half heat so that it shrinks over and properly tightly hold on to the places over here or else it potentially is going to slip off you do get heat shrink with Japan has got an adhesive side so that it does prevent it from sliding off on insulation but here I've got a good mechanical connection because i'm going over the leg as well I haven't covered too much of the like there's still a nice piece that's exposed so we get good contact area for electrical contact but yet it covers it nicely cover things up that as I said with this you can't see what's going on underneath if I'd continued heating it beyond this point what happens very quickly if you're not careful especially over the legs which get hot it start splitting and you can have a split underneath which you may not realize and then over time this is going to flake off and and its functionality just going to go so just be wary of that when you are actually putting your heat shrink on to your wire and your connector and then last but not least just remember to use your connectors and what have you for the right application as I realized here using the Spade connectors as a fuse holder is perhaps not the right idea the materials are not designed for the potential heat created by these fuses even over here again you can see as a test and i'll link to the video and here where I've been testing the kind of heat that can be generated in wire and these connections if they're not done correctly and you can see what can happen very easily you can get these plastics melting and they could melt and then cause a short as well that's potentially an issue I'd always say where you possible avoid using automotive fuses like this go for proper fuse holders and hopefully your glass fuses which are less likely to end up like this right i hope you get some value from that I do appreciate that I'm like not know all the ins and outs so if you certainly have pulls wisdom and are wiser in this regard to post your comments below or even consider posting a video response we show how it should be done or show what can go wrong when it isn't done correctly certainly having the right tools does helps in the link below i'll have a link to my amazon store where you can either get the actual crimp connectors or tools you can also consider going to my sponsor test the doctor . UK who helped keep the show on the road and help me produce these videos so thank you very much for watching and I'll catch you soon for the next video Cheers tester . code . UK yeah

Channel: mjlorton

Views: 2,423,056

Keywords: How to crimp connectors, DIY, strip wire, heat shrink, heatshrink, heat-shrink, sheat shrink tube, AWG, American Wire Gauge, crimp tools, crimping, crimping tools, crimping wire

Id: kjSGCSwNuAg

Length: 31min 25sec (1885 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 16 2013