Seraphim said:
You guys here got me thinking about the topic. Think I'll play with the HF crimper, and try rotating the wire to get a proper crimp, now that I know what I'm looking for. When I get a set wires properly crimped, using larger wire, I also plan to add a few built-in power points to charge the cell phones, and iPads. His and hers... Lol
I purchased a cheap hydraulic crimper from Amazon for my build and proceded to sacrifice 4 lugs to learning how to use it. What I learned:
1. you are going to need at least 3 hands (and preferrably 4) to hold the wire, hold the lug in place, hold the crimper, work the lever.
2. start with the largest crimper that will compress the lug and then use the next smaller, rotating the crimper 60°, until you get the crimp you want. For AWG 4 wire, I did this 3 times. This minimizes the 'ears' on the crimp.
3. hacksaw a sacrificial lug to verify you are making a good crimp.
4. Tested the lug connection to 50 lbs (hanging weight).
The lugs don't look as good as MaineSail's, but I only paid $20 for the crimper. Couldn't see spending $100+ for a tool I will only use 10 or 12 times. I cannot measure a voltage drop across the connection, but that might be my crappy VOM. Followed up with shrink wrap over connection.
I got a 5 ton hydraulic crimper thinking that would be enough but I had to really work to get the crimp I wanted.
Hope this helps -- Spiff
P.S. Each 12V to 5V USB plug ins have a constant 0.01 amp parasitic draw (~1/4 amp hour a day), so I am going to put a switch in line next chance I get.
