Dr. Anton T. Squeegee wrote:
In article ,
(known to some as Danny Richardson) scribed...
Looking for suggestions for a good crimp tool for installing coax
connectors. It will primarily for BNC connectors on RG-174, 58 and 59
cables. Although the RG-8 cable family capability would be nice too.
I do wish to avoid being a captive customer in that brand X crimp tool
only works well with brand X connectors.
And, of course, looking for the best bang for the buck.
My take is that the best possible bang for the buck, as it were,
may be had by searching Greed-bay for a surplus mil-spec hex crimper,
such as the Daniels Manufacturing HX-4. This particular tool has
interchangeable dies to accommodate a wide variety of coaxial
connectors, as well as insulated terminal lugs.
They will tend to be more expensive, even at the surplus level,
than your typical made-in-taiwan Paladin (or whoever) crimper, but the
Daniels tools will also be of a much higher quality. Properly cared for,
they may outlast their owner.
As some examples: Item #120044919904 is for a new HX-4 frame, in
its original box, with a Y193 die set, opening bid of $79. Considering
that the frame alone new, from Daniels, is nearly $280, that's quite a
bargain.
Granted, the Y193 die set won't be useful to you unless you're
crimping contact assemblies for the D-sub coax/regular combo connectors,
but it should not be hard to find appropriate die sets for whatever
connectors you want to work with.
A full description of the HX-4, and a listing of common dies for
it, may be found at this link:
============================================
Crimping might be appropriate for a large volume of coax connectors.
However for a limited number of connectors as applicable to domestic
amateur radio a gland type of cable entry seems more to the point.
BNC- , PL259- and N-connectors are all available with braid sleeve
inserts which highly likely give a better (long term) braid/connector
connection than a crimped arrangement at least for RF ,especially when
used in an outdoor environment.
I do have a short lead with 2 PL259 connectors with both centre pin
and body crimped to RG58 coax which probably originates from the 'CB
trade' .The braid crimp is not a hexagon but cylindrical with side
ridges, like -O- . I would never want to make up leads this way myself.
Frank GM0CSZ / KN6WH