Preciva Dupont Crimping Tool AWG26-18, Ratchet Crimper Toolkit with 1550PCS Male/Female Pin Connectors 0.1-1.0mm² and 460PCS JST Terminals for 2.54mm 3.96mm, etc.

Preciva Crimping Tool Kit with all needed materials. The tool, JST-XH Connectors and Dupont Connectors. Within a few days after ordering with Amazon UK I received this very complete set in France. The box it came in was well packaged with enough extra paper to make sure the kit itself was undamaged after the journey overseas. In the sturdy cardboard box we find the Crimping Tool, a very complete and helpful User Manual describing the ins and outs of this set in great detail and in 6 languages. It also comes with a lot of materials to crimp. Two boxes for transport safety packaged in a strong sleeve. One of the 2 plastic organising boxes (the bigger of the 2), contains 1550 Dupont Connector parts. They range from the smallest 1 pin plastic holders to the 6-pin wide plugs. With the small metal pieces for male and female connectors this makes up for a complete crimping solution. But there is even a lot more in this box as well. There are the elbow connectors (they will take a Dupont plug) that can be soldered to your pcb or experiment board. As well as a 150 cm 10-wire ribbon cable to build your first sets of cables with plugs from. The smaller of the two plastic organising boxes contains the 460 pieces for the JST-XH Connectors. This is a system where the male part is soldered to your board and the cable is crimped to the plugs. It delivers plugs/connector combinations from 2 up to and including 6 plugs. The box itself is of a different make compared to the bigger box and might be a little less sturdy. So far it works very well for me. After these preliminaries lets see how the crimping works. The crimping equipment is very sturdy with a good grip. It has a ratchet that blocks the tool in a few steps which turns out to be a real help when crimping. After reading the manual that is very detailed and easy to understand I made my first set of cables with plugs. The way to do this turns out to be very easy if you set the tool with 2 clicks from the wide-open setting. Then you can feed the small metal pin in one of the three openings (see the manual). The numbers 1-3 should be turned towards you (visible) when you feed the pins into the beak. Then you need to visually check how far to feed the cable into it and finalize the crimping movement slowly but surely. At the end of this movement the tool can again be opened and you should have a well crimped connection. All in all I am very pleased with this new addition to my electronics workshop. I have used it in a variety of projects connecting separate electronics circuits on pcb's to each other and for making connections to various sensors and other modules like GPS or break-out boards. The pitch is 2,54 mm which is the standard for most of the experiment boards and solderless breadboards (see pictures). It gives you more than enough parts for many years of DIY-electronics projects. And the tool itself will outlive you if handled with care. I can heartily recommend this Crimping Tooling! PS. pictures of pcb and solderless breadboard showing some usage scenarios, these are not included!

I have used a wide variety of crimps and crimp tooling over the years from ultra-cheap pressed steel junk to industrial tooling costing hundreds of pounds. I have wanted something to manage this sort of crimp system for a while but I hadn't seen anything I could afford. When I saw these and that they came with terminals my expectations were pretty low to be frank but I have been surprised by just how good they have turned out to be. The quality of the frame is high, with well formed and aligned steel pressings that appear to be properly riveted together. The hand grips are comfortable and well attached to the frame. The all important jaws set is well machined, seems to be properly hardened and meshes very well without any obvious lateral play or interference. The crimping action itself is smooth and positive without frame deflection, though you wouldn't really expect any with crimps this small. My only niggle is the practical difficulty with setting up and aligning the crimps themselves while ensuring correct placement of the wires. This is not really the fault of the tool but the consequence of having to hand crimp such small parts. The resulting crimps are perfectly formed and secure. I have tried a couple of manual pull tests and the crimps seems as well formed as any I have done on manufacturer supplied professional equipment. I haven't tried all the connector permutations but the first lot are going onto an Arduino Proto board so that should show up any quality issues with the actual terminals themselves but so far I am delighted with the tool. This looks to be a positive addition to my toolbox and represents almost unbelievable value for money.

As a relative novice to the world of crimping, I'm very happy with them. I'm not sure any of this type of crimper can be regarded as "easy to use", they all need practice, but these are as easy as any I've tried. JST (position 1) is the easier of the two types, as they have a little nub which sits just outside the jaw, which helps to position the crimp correctly, and the crimp is held nice and stable by the first click of the ratchet; you then simply put the wire in by the right amount (that takes some experimentation) and close it all the way. You can feel the extra resistance if you've pushed the wire in too far and the part of the crimp that should be bare wire has instead bitten down on insulation, which can alert you to a miscrimp that you might otherwise not be able to see. The DuPont (position 3) on the other hand you have to align by eye, and I find it more difficult to keep it in the right place; the crimp seems to need a little squeeze of its horns before insertion otherwise it's prone to tip sideways as you close the jaws, and there isn't a ratchet click that holds it securely while still permitting the insulation to slide into the outer part of the crimp, or in any case not with the wires I was using. But at least that 3rd die position is the right shape for the Dupont, unlike many crimpers which claim to support Dupont but don't actually have the correct shape for the insulation crimp. The supplied crimps/plugs/sockets themselves seem of adequate quality, and it's nice to get everything in one package - a good set for beginners like me.