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Coax compression fittings beat crimp connectors on 50 jobs, and here's why I switched for good
After three callbacks in one month from loose crimps in attic heat, I ran a side-by-side test on 25 drops last August in Phoenix and compression fittings held signal strength twice as long, so has anyone else ditched crimps for good or am I the only one dealing with that summer rework?
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allen.iris1mo ago
My buddy runs a low voltage crew over in Mesa, and he had the same exact thing happen to him. He did a big commercial job last summer and got called back twice because crimps went soft in the heat. He finally got fed up and switched every connection on that site to compression fittings overnight. Last week he told me that same building passed its two year inspection with zero signal loss. He still keeps crimps in the truck for quick temp fixes, but he won't touch them for anything permanent now. Watching him redo that whole attic alone convinced me that heat is the real enemy, not the connector type.
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kimfisher1mo ago
Funny thing about that buddy's story, the heat isn't actually what makes crimps fail. It's the temperature swings, the expansion and contraction cycles, that work the barrel loose over time. Phoenix goes from 110 degrees in the day to 75 at night in the summer, that's a huge difference for metal to flex back and forth on. @allen.iris, if your buddy's site passed inspection after two years, that's more about him using the right tool and die size on those compression fittings than the fitting type itself. Heat makes things brittle, but crimps fail because of movement, not because the connector gets soft.
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