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I've got a cheapo waldon crimper that I'm frustrated with. Do these work with the microfit connectors used on the ord bot? http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/1928

Do they work well?

I'm loathe to spend >$100 on what seem like simple pliers, but after using some Molex crimpers at Metrix last week I might bite the bullet. I'm wasting far too much time on crimping and seeing too many failures with what I'm doing now.

These are the ones I have and they have worked well for me.

For molex crimping, I recommend the ones from http://lutro0-customs.com/. He even shows results of his crimpers and others, how to crimp right, and what failures look like.

I don't see a sample of those crimping MicroFit's - they are a right pain in the arse without Molex dies...

TLHarrell wrote:For molex crimping, I recommend the ones from http://lutro0-customs.com/. He even shows results of his crimpers and others, how to crimp right, and what failures look like.

I mostly work with computer stuff, and I have one of the Lutro0 crimpers on the way. It should arrive today or tomorrow. If you'd like to send me a couple pins, I'd be happy to test them on the crimper to see how it performs. Looks pretty similar to the others.

The crimper sold on Pololu looks like the ones tested on Lutro0, III or IIIII.

I have a set of those blue pololu crimpers. They do about the same quality as you could do by the manual needle node fold over method, but faster. I have the real the crimpers now and don't use them anymore.

Crimping is a learned skill on any crimper. In my opinion, the most important thing is strip length on the wire. Longer is not better, it is worse. If your pin does not crimp correctly on the insulation it will fail. I lend out my crimpers all the time and some people have some of the first crimps fail and give up.

Give each pin a good tug before you put it in the housing. Don't worry a good crimp will not pull off with a reasonable tug. It is a pain if it fails in the housing.

I have these: http://au.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Mole ... J%252btipx

About a $100 and totally worth it. Official Molex, but designed for service work rather than production, which is plenty good for me. Takes a little practice (getting the terminal into place using the magnetic clamp and working out correct strip length) but they are easily my favorite tool to use.

What about solder pins? Any opinions on going that direction as opposed to crimping? Are those just a time consuming pain?