Why I'm never using those cheap crimpers from Harbor Freight again

Was troubleshooting a Cessna 172 last Tuesday and found three pins in a D-sub connector that looked fine but weren't making contact... turns out my budget crimpers from $20 were barely squeezing the barrel. Switched to a used Daniels DMC I found on Craigslist and the difference in pull test results was night and day. Anyone else had a bad experience with cheap tools on critical avionics work?

4 comments

4 Comments

samflores1mo agoMost Upvoted

My buddy Mike was rebuilding the wiring harness on his Kitfox last winter and those Harbor Freight crimpers looked like they were doing the job. He tested like twenty pins by pulling on them with his fingers and they all seemed tight enough. First flight after the rebuild the alternator quit about ten minutes into the air and he had to deadstick it back into a field. Turned out three of the crimps on the alternator field wire had just slipped right off the pins when things got hot and started vibrating. He tore into it after landing and you could literally slide the wire out of the crimp barrel with zero resistance. He went straight to a proper tool after that and now he makes every guy in his hangar test their own crimps before he lets them touch anything in his plane.

west.casey1mo ago

Cheap tools just pass the problem down the line is all.

riverh491mo ago

Read somewhere that vibration is the real test for these things, not just a pull test at room temp. @daniel_gonzalez your buddy with the drone probably learned that the hard way too, but at least he didn't die like that Kitfox guy almost did.

daniel_gonzalez1mo ago

Buddy of mine builds racing drones and swore by those cheap crimpers until a $4000 rig fell out of the sky thanks to a loose pin. He went straight to eBay for a used Daniels DMC after that.