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:

http://tinyurl.com/yy263j

Happy hunting.


--
Dr. Anton T. Squeegee, Director, Dutch Surrealist Plumbing Institute
(Known to some as Bruce Lane, KC7GR)
http://www.bluefeathertech.com -- kyrrin a/t bluefeathertech d-o=t calm
"Salvadore Dali's computer has surreal ports..."