Crimper advice

[garriwilson]

Hey, I'm thinking about getting a crimper and have seen some in the 20-50$ range that were recommended in other threads. I want to know how to decide on a crimper in the first place. Are crimpers universal? If I get one, is it only going to be able to crimp one type of connector?

Probably the most useful for me would be molex connectors. I just need advice on whether to get a better more expensive crimper so that I can use it for later projects if needed.

Thanks!

[bdeuell]

A paladin crimper has been on my wish list. I was looking at the 8000 series CrimpAll which i believe is their low cost version (~$70). They have interchangeable dies so the same tool can be used for many connector types (~$30 for a die set).

I think crimpers (or dies) are typically designed for a specific connector but I have used crimpers for multiple connectors in the past with success. My experience is the crimper may not fit exactly but many connectors use similar die shapes and you can get away with using the "wrong" dies for similar style connectors. I wouldn't recommend this if you are building a space shuttle but for hobby projects a crimper is usually better than pliers. 

I know molex has their own brand of crimpers so if you plan on crimping mostly their connectors you may want to look at that. Of course they have different ones for different connectors and they are probably not cheap. If you know what connector you will use 90% of the time i would find something that is designed to crimp that.

Whatever you decide to get i'd be interested in a review.