Crimping is an attractive alternative to soldering but ... . Surely there must be a much cheaper way
Good Day, Ian. I have played with those connectors and used a $25 crimper with an appropriate size set of "jaws" - and, while they work OK, they are fussy to install. I also found a pair of sturdy needle nose pliers works even better, folding down one side, and then the other side, of the crimp grip.
I also use a lot of crimp-on connectors for amateur radio antenna and DC power installations. The "proprietary" crimp tools sold by TimesMicrowave and Anderson PowerPoles are very expensive and are, in practice, no better than low cost (<$25US) generic or no-brand crimp tools. And yet, I often turn to a heavy duty needle nose pliers to fold the crimp bits onto the wire.
While I am a big fan of crimp connections. A feller I know makes prototype boards for military use. He convenced me crimp connections are really very good, and, as others have mentioned, soldering makes the wire brittle. (non-technically speaking) - so I like crimp connections - and yet, I very often eschew standard crimp tools for other tools that get the job done easier and faster. Sometimes a large crimp tool is awakward to use - expecially with short stripped inner conductors compared to havey duty outer cable insullation (e.g., RG-213 or LMR-600 coaxial cable or heavy duty mic cable) and I end up using a smaller set of pliers to pinch the crimp connectors on the short leads.
Therefore, I might purchase a number of the crimp connectors you mention in your original post, and buy a pile of extra pins for them ... but NOT the expensive tool they sell. I would either use a low cost generic crimper or stick to my needle nose pliers.
Parenthetically, nothing herein should be construed as contradicting anything the others have said! This is just MY take. Good luck. James
