Product review, heavy duty crimpers

Close up of the adjustment on the crimp tool

Quick specs

    Make: RS Pro (RS Components)

    Model: Heavy duty for tubular cable lug, part number 445611

    Type: Manual, for terminals of 10mm2 to 120mm2, indent crimp.

Pros: Good value, not too big, fits a wide cross section of terminal sizes

Cons: Probably hard work to close on the larger terminal sizes, forever being flamed for not owning a hydraulic hex crimper.

When you are installing cables, you will need to terminate the ends, the tool required to install these terminals or lugs is a crimper. The crimper must be suitable for the type of terminal that will be used, in this case battery cable terminals of the European standard of mm2 (10 to 120 in this case). This is an important point, depending on what cables you are using, there are two main standards used, the European mm2 and the US standard of AWG (American Wiring Gauge), use the crimper and terminals that match the cables.

Internet standard

It is important to know, there is a third standard used, the internet standard, this is where a crimper advertised as being AWG or mm2 is actually neither or it could be both or maybe it´s close to one and not the other, you get the idea. If the crimper does not conform to a standard it will never make a good and reliable termination.

I did not arrive at buying the crimper for this review by accident, it was a long and drawn out process involving trying many crimpers, a lot of which were a lot more expensive than this one, some were bought and sent back, others were loaned to try first.

All photos are of a 50mm2 cable.
 Top, close up of two indent crimps.
Bottom left, thick wall terminal next to the removed cable insulation.
  Bottom right, close up of the terminal cut in half to see how the individual copper strands were compressed.

Crimper in use

This is a manual crimper which means you need to use old fashioned muscle power, the good thing about being manual is there is no need to change any dies or carry around dozens of extra pieces, the tool is easy enough to put into a large toolbox or have in a vehicle. The downside to the manual operation is you have no assistance to help you close the tool to complete the crimp. I have only used and tested the crimper with cables up to 50mm2 and they were easy enough, but I imagine the larger 95 and 120mm2 cables would require quite a bit of energy to close or holding the crimper on a workbench or similar for some extra leverage.

The crimper forms an indent crimp, to hold the terminal into the cable a single point pushes into the terminal forming an indent, on longer bodies terminals two indents can be made, I would advise using these types of terminals and choose ones with a thicker wall to them, tinned copper is the best material.

You can see in the photos, they make the opposite side to the indent slightly triangular. There is a scale on the side of the jaws to adjust to the size of cable being used, very easy and no changing on dies to go from one cable size to another, although for the most part you are doing one job at a time and some don´t have to make adjustments too often, it does save on dies being lost of dropped. 

Indent crimpers have been around for a long time, they make a perfectly fine crimp, you will be told time over that hex crimpers (a hexagonal crimp that goes all around the terminal) are superior and that might be true, but, in my search a lot of hex crimpers were tested, both manual and hydraulic, here in Europe at least, finding some that actually conformed to the size of the terminals and did not require a second mortgage to buy was difficult, this is something of which I am slightly envious of the United States, there seem to be a lot more crimpers available at good prices that conform to standards. Please be aware when buying online, you may well end up sending the tool back, or, in my case, several times.

The original sticker on the box for reference

Conclusion

Recommended tool, it´s the one I use for larger section cables, have a different one for smaller ones, Product review, uninsulated terminal and copper lug crimper. Very easy to use for novices and gives professional results. Everyone will tell you you need a hydraulic crimper and your crimps are sub standard, all your wiring will fall apart, blah, blah, blah, simply not true. If you do a lot of these crimps, it probably will serve you to get a hydraulic hex crimp set, but, please be very careful of cheap, unknown brands, because, I can assure you, the results will be vastly inferior than this tool.

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