Perfect crimp! No air voids in the cut off piece, or bunny ears on the terminal. The $2000 crimper would not have done better.

I just got the 4/0 welding cables. The lugs are over $10.00 each. I just bought a dozen. I will buy a copper pipe and make my own lugs from now on. The crimper will get here Dec 6. Thanks for the video.

I used the smaller Kline cutters a lot in the work I used to do, and they work well on smaller electrical wire- #12, 10, 8 and #6, and it will work on somewhat larger wires too if you work at it. I had a friend who used to slide a piece of conduit over each handle to increase the leverage. I finally got a greenlee cutter for the bigger wire.

I've watched a lot of videos on crimping, and yours is the best. I have that same crimper, and half the battle is picking the right dies. The problem is that some terminals are "heavy wall" or sized for 1 AWG and 2 AWG wire, some are thinner, so I'd say to buy a few extra and if you get "Bunny Ears" where the dies make a pair of tabs on the side, use larger dies and try again. You don't have to over crimp. That smashes the strands. I threw out my first attempt. BTW I use a knife to cut the insulation, and if you twist it off rather than bend it, you don't get loose strands. Your crimp was perfect!

To my eyes that crimp looks excellent!

Great job, thanks for taking the time to share!

Superficially, that crimp looks solid and very good. Typically, a good rule-of thumb for the amount of wire compression is 20+/-5% (reduction in cross-sectional area). A) The un-terminated wire strand diameter can be measured with a micrometer and the cross-sectional area calculated. Add them together and you have the cable cross-sectional area. B) Sand and polish the cross-sectional cut of the crimp you made with the band saw. (Sometimes you need to etch the polished surface with acid the see the wire vs. the terminal.) You can then measure the cross-sectional area of the wire in the crimp. This is cheapest in an optical recticle, but is easier if you have access to an optical comparator, or measurescope. This hexagonal area is then determined using trigonometry. C) This area should be 80+/-5% of the original wire area. This is the most accurate way, but understandably a destructive validation and very labor intensive.Alternatively:An easier way is to get the proper nominal crimp height (with tolerance) across the terminal flats from the terminal manufacturer for that size wire. Then just measure your crimp as defined by the terminal manufacturer to verify it is in specification. (This assumes your wire cable is near nominal cross-sectional area and you didn't cut off strands during insulation stripping.)I am a connector engineer with crimping on some of my products.

That’s better than most. I have the same crimper. I had to remove some material from the parallel surface from both half’s of the dies to get it to close down a bit more. I got the crimp down a more pronounced corners on the hex crimp. This is totally dependent on the brand of lugs you want to stick with.

Thats a solid crimp 👍 looks really good and the connection is solid, i had the same crimper while i did my car audio wiring, such a good purchase

I worked at a produce packing plant twenty years ago and the entire facility was cooled to keep the produce fresh. We had to use electric forklifts that used 48 volt 1000 ah batteries. The batteries had a quick connect that was used to unplug from the forklift and connect to the charger. This constant plugging and unplugging would fray the ends and we would have to re terminate the batteries. We used similar tools except for a manual crimper, it was a workout to use it. We also crimped twice, once with a larger die and then switched to the next size smaller to get a better crimp. The hydraulic crimper allows you to use the right die for one crimp. We were extra careful to keep the cables separate.

To my amateur eye that crimp looks excellent. I think the secret to not getting wings is the tight fit of the cable and selecting the proper die. I would suggest picking up a round cable stripper. You can hold it to the end of the wire to adjust the blade depth to very nearly (but never) nick the wire, and you get a clean, straight and square cut. Cheap ones (like $20) work fine, imho, for someone who doesn’t use them every day.

Great video...really appreciate the links to the parts used. I'm embarking on adding Lithium batteries to our RV and this video was very helpful. Cheers!

That is a GOOD crimp. Turned the bond into a solid block of copper. Then you hermetically sealed it with proper shrink tube. Great job.

It's as 'one'! OMG, you've crimped it that good and tight, you've actually welded it together as 'one'!

Perfect Job

Just doing my Big 3 upgrade for my 06’ 5.9 Cummins and the only thing I did different was I beveled the insulation on the wire and actually got it snuggled up into the terminal so there is no gap at all, and I used tinned copper terminals heavy duty with the viewing hole at the end and I double crimped and then heated the hole terminal up and got the tip filled with solder also! I used 2/0 and 3/0 Execleane welding lead cable! Super cool setup,

Is the perfect crimp 👌 these is the great job

From this old Marine Systems Engineer that have been doing this for many decades, I can say "very well done". Your hired! I would recommend to get the hell off the floor and use a bench. I prefer lineman crimpers with the two rotating dies for quick change and fast easier crimping. Well done dude.

that is a great crimp. i am an inds. elect. for over 40 years

Excellent crimp, job well done.

Cable nerd hour. Thank you so much for the demo. 👍🏻

well i guess the trolls took a break for this video, but i do see a couple "experts" commenting about how they do it or maybe questioning the crimp. i think they either don't pay attention or don't understand the crimp isn't just to hold the terminal on the cable, i'm glad you went far enough to explain about the crimp when done right has no gaps inside or room for air, that didn't sound right but maybe you know what i meant. i got a great lesson in 1994 when a expert did my car hauler for me, battery's , starter, winch, and 30ft remote control cable with switches, still today no corrosion. 00 cable and brass terminals.

I worked as a IBEW Lineman for 4 years. It is critical at high voltages to no knock any wire AT ALL. One trick is to “score the jacket” or cut the jacket close enough to the wire so the jacket can be pulled off without ever touching the wire at all.

That's a good crimp,no gaps between the lug and the wire, everything looks packed tight.

Great cables createthis!

👍 It's a very good Crimp!

Good job.

Excellent crimp. No voids.

Nice! To help with strands that want to bend back when installing the lug you can twist it while pushing it on. That keeps the strands tight together so they slide into the lug easier. Otherwise if you just push the lug straight on then you get strands that flex back. Happens all the time when I've been making cables.

Great job, thank you for sharing!!

Very helpful thanks

Nice going, I am having to get into doing my own cabling for my home backup system, because I just don't trust the "experts". This means I have taken a pretty deep dive into this field and would like to share with you what I know about your crimper situation. To clear up the numbering issue on your crimping tool, it is clearly a metric crimper and the units are in square millimeters (sqmm). This relates to the amount of cross sectional surface area of the conductor. The 120 die on your crimper is for 120 sqmm wire which is one of the standard metric sizes for wires and lugs. The next standard size down from that is 95sqmm. Your 4/0 AWG cable should have a cross sectional area of 107.2 mm so you technically have a die that is just a smidge too big, though at that size, a 13 sqmm delta is not as big as you would think and a smaller die would probably just not work well as it may cause too much plastic deformation in the copper, pushing it towards its yield point, which could result in a weakened lug. From a circular diameter point of view 95sqmm is 11mm wide 4/0 is 11.7 and 120sqmm is 12.4. Bottom line is that you don't have the correct tool for the imperial wire system that is commonly available in your country, as that tool is intended to be used on metric wire and lugs. That being said, it still produced a great crimp and is a darn sight better than "vice and pliers" assisted crimps I have seen out there. Hope it helps and thanks for the video.

the crimp is good worked with the machine for 6 years

Thanks for sharing. Btw, love your kitty.

Good crimp! “120” refers to the metric equivalent of the wire size. 120mm^2 and #4/0 AWG are very close in area (circular mils or “cmils”). With dies and lugs, there’s usually a difference in cmils between super flex cable (MTW or DLO for example) and stranded cable (THHN orTHWN for example). FYI: The dies / crimpers sold on amazon are typically meant for super flex cable as stranded cable is only used in the US and those crimpers (on Amazon) are imported from Asia. If your application is compression lugs with stranded cable, those dies might not crimp tight enough.

I have a lot of experience in doing that and you did a great job if Trump was great and your rap looks very neat and yes that is a very good tight joint keep the good work up thank you for the video

Hello from the high desert of New Mexico USA 🇺🇸. I just found your channel and I liked and subscribed. And yes that is a good cold weld joint. Keep up the good work and stay safe

Perfect crimp!

Awesome video. This was exactly what I was looking for my truck camper build. If I decide to go the direction I'd like to with my power set up, I will need to run a healthy length of 4/0 cable. The distance from my battery under the hood to the inverter in the truck bed camper is about 22 feet give or take. The distance I guess requires me to run 4/0. Expensive. My only other alternative is to run my batteries in my truck bed. But I don't want to give up the space and I want to be able to tie them into the alternator for charging purposes when my solar isn't able to be taken advantage of. Your cables crimp set up looks clean and professional. You have some strong comments backing up your work it sounds like. Thanks again for sharing! New sub!

Brilliant

Very good crimp

Looks like a very good crimp. Nice video. For cutting the jacket off the cable try using a utility knife with fresh razor blade. You really don't want to cut any strands.

good viedeo

Nice video. I just replaced all the battery cables on my ten AGM batteries in my boat. The experts say not to use welding cable in a application where any fuel could leak on them as the jacket can not hold up to it and will melt away. Marine cable will not do that.

It looks like a perfect crimp to me, I would use it! LOL Any way it's way better than the crimped cables you get in the store.

Perfect crimp 👍 I wonder if I could use the small cutter for cutting the cable...

The cat is awesome

What's is a cost for you to make me one just like video about 10 inches? For my dump truck batteries

Perfect crimp. The tool makes a difference. As an alternative to the expensive heat shrink, you could paint on some silicone to seal the connection under the regular heat shrink tubing.

lol yea that's a perfect crimp. Only thing I could recommend is to continue heating the shrink wrap until the adhesive oozes out a little bit. That helps to confirm a air/water tight seal.

Thumbs up to the curious 🐈

Crimps look great to me a better way to strip the insulation is to use mason line or builders line and run the string over the insulation where you need it cut it burns right through the insulation but won’t damage the copper wire

Not sure if you are not giving yourself enough credit on purpose..... that’s an awesome crimp!

I think the Cable Crimping Police might take issue with that lone cat hair caught under the heat-shrink tubing. Otherwise, great job! I added your video to my Favorites!

You can use a tube cutter to score the insulation and twist the end off.

Crimp is good. Be aware you can also buy Ancor tinned cable, for demanding (marine) jobs. Costs more but goes the distance with no corrosion if any water finds its way in. If you are doing a lot of these, get yourself a cable jacket splitter. Hand tool with a variable depth cutter. You set the depth, then spin the tool around the cable a couple of times (depth is pre set so you don't cut any strands) and then pull it toward the end and the cutter knife turns 90 degrees and now splits the jacket from your cutline to the end and the jacket just falls off. The hydraulic crimpers are great, very cheap for what they do - I guess all made in China so they only seem to come with metric dies. I'm sure that 120 you have is a metric figure. Wish a manf over there would make a set of AWG dies as I have seen a number of crimp jobs botched because of confusion as to which dies to use. Thanks for the video!

it is excellent crimp I do the same thing, but I use copper cable.

@9:40 what if u only cut 50% deep and then make a perpendicular cut with a knife and then rip the loose insulation off? i saw that in a how-to-movie for huge electricity cables (they were 25cm (10inch) thick, i guess)...

14:28 lol! Neither do I but it looks dope. Good job

Good crimp

Where did you get the knee pads?

Lol cats

Hey man what's better a 0 guage or 3 or 4 gauge car jumper cables? Cuz I was thinking of buying a powerful cables...

I'm no expert, but it looks good to me. 👍

Little Late. I'm always late. Your crimp looks fine. A bit soft. I see some Air gap to the left side. We use to dip them in a solder pot for some applications. Mixed school of thought on including the BELL end of the terminal within the Crimp. We included it . I worked in a wire harness facility making harnesses for Caterpillar and other known names some 7 years. Many Military contracts. I still don't consider my self a professional. LOL

nice video thanks

That crimp looks solid. Appears you compressed the wire extremely tight so therefore it looks like solid core but honestly shouldn't make a lot of difference since it's on soo tight. You should lose less electricity because the quality of the crimp looks amazing.

is that too big for a 4 cylinder forester turbo 2/0 aint enough? or even a gauge 4?

Looks like a great crimp to me. I just have a hammer type crimper and your's is 100 times better result.

oh basically when you cut it in half you are looking to see if there is any gaps between the wire strands and also if there is any gaps between the wire and the terminal. If there is, then its not a good crimp. You want to see all the strands and the terminal become one solid chunk of metal just like this.

Helpful video..You have a Great speaking voice.You sound like Christian bale.I do voice editing.

Lovely crimp no air pockets

The hydrolic crimper is the way to go with that size wire. Only way to get a gas free crimp. If you cut the top off of that terminal after crimping it in it should look like a solid copper rod where the crimper mashed the wires so tight together. You usually only get that with the more expensive crimpers. I'm not sure about your $50 pair but the harbor freight $50 won't hold up to it.

I use heat shrink on the connectors

I like your content cat man!

Looks good to me, so long as you don't use the cable as a lifting strap.

Do a cadweld on the lugs

Didn't heat shrink enough, other than that the lug and wire are almost indistinguishable.

These are the same type compression lugs we use for grounding towers... If it's good enough for that then it's fine for battery terminals. Need a job?

I have a air impact crimp tool takes 1 second to crimp with ease.

I'm not sure about the heat shrink because marine inhesive backed heat shrink you can see glue ooze out the sides But it could be a different brand 🤷‍♂️

it is fucking good very sold

4/0 (pronounced 'aught') - I find this odd.

over kill

Paranoid a wee bit

Do not nick the conductors. It is automatic failure if you have a QA person watching you ring and strip the cable.

Bad way to strip wire. Get a cheap adjustable cable cutter like this: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BMUDIGA/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Not saying you did a bad job, it's just easier with the right tool. Retired electrician speaking.

Americans, always so confused by simple metric measurements. The 120 is the cross sectional area of the conductor (120mm^2)

I do like strippers.... I know you're not talking about the human ones, but still, those are nice strippers!!! lol

Bad crimp, Minimum Seam is poor, I would know