Crimping lug on welding lead

[David R]

Duane, I lived in Howlett Hill when I was 0 to 6. Atichesen Road. Prolly spelled that wrong.

We off topic yet?

David.

[duaneb55]

Duane, I lived in Howlett Hill when I was 0 to 6. Atichesen Road. Prolly spelled that wrong.

We off topic yet?

David.

Not quite enough.

Aitchison actually and we lived there for a couple months with my aunt and uncle (Orr's)after my mom died when I was 8 ('63). Another aunt and uncle (Wise) lived right next door - he owned an SA200. Then we moved one road to the east on Beef Street behind the Fire Station that is built on my Great Grandfather's original farm property to live with my grandparents until our dad remarried a couple years later when we moved to Marcellus and so on and so on...

Small world.

[mjmiller1824]

Depends on the size of the cable, but for our 0/2 leads we use a dull cold chisel to punch the lugs against an anvil, then dip the entire end into a solder pot.

[regularfella]

I solder my lugs on. I start by heating the lug in a vise with a propane torch, then adding rosin core solder about 1/3 -1/5 full and is molten. Then, I take the prepped cable with insulation stripped just far enough back for the insulation to come in contact with the lug when fully seated, and preheat the copper wire slightly. Then I stick the cable into the melted solder and seat fully down . I hold for a couple of seconds and continue heating with the other hand. Then, before it cools, I use the vise jaws to "crimp" the lug slightly. Never had a problem.

I've done the same thing several times on 4G without crimping it at all. Never any problems here

[ScratchStart]

The most recent experience with putting lugs on cable ends was in the telecom industry. Everything from #10 through 750MCM have compression lugs on them. Critical circuits were occasionally tested at maximum rated current and checked for heating of the lug. I've seen soldered lugs pass the same test on #1 or #2, but screw terminals on any size cables were always left bare.

[Willie B]

For me it has been a lifelong quest. Terminals and cable have to be oxide free to work well long term. As heavy duty terminals aren't always available, and they have to be crimped in a die made for them, I look for set screw terminals. When a set screw terminal needs it, I can cut cable back to fresh. I always use Noalox from Ideal.

As for solder in a closed vessel type terminal, they do have slightly higher resistance at first, but resistance will never increase. I've never witnessed a designed for solder terminal overheat. I'll use them whenever I can.

[scsmith42]

I’ve used solder, crimp and set screw all at one time or another.

For farm built battery cables, I prefer solder with heat shrink. I’m still using cables that I made this way almost 30 years ago w/o problems. The nice thing about a good solder connection coupled with high quality heat shrink is that you won’t get internal oxidation in the connection.

I’ve never felt that my crispers provided the same level of connection quality as solder on fine strand copper (works fine on course strand though), but I don’t have a set of hydraulic crispers - just a set of large hand crimpers for electrical connectors.

The hydraulic crimps on the test cables look top quality though. Maybe I need to look into a set of dies for my Parker portable hydraulic hose crimped for terminating cables.

[docwelder]

i had a hammer powered lug tong but never thought it crimped well enough so i finished crimping in the vise. i guess squeezing would describe it better. to me sweating the lug on seemed like too much work for not enough return.

[ScratchStart]

Voltage = Current X Resistance. Converting this to calculate resistance gives Resistance = Voltage / Current which using your measurements gives 0.0529 / 275 = 0.000192 ohms.

If you have 2/0 wire, its resistance alone would be 0.000257 ohms per meter. So the implied resistance of your crimp would look valid if the distance from the piercing of the sheath to the terminal was well under a meter. Back when I worked in telecom, we would measure the resistance of crimps from terminal to terminal using a milliohm meter, subtracting the calculated resistance of the wire between them, and dividing by two for the two crimps. Hydraulically crimped lugs on 2/0 cables would be passed with less than 0.001 ohms resistance.

[VPT]

I use the vise for heavy crimping. Stick the lug in the vise with a nail down one side to crease in the lug. Stick wire in and crimp it tight.

[Scott Laughlin]

I got one of these and it really puts a tight crimp on the lug:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Slob]

Almost the same as mine and does do a good job.

[Virgil5]

That $50 Amazoom crimper is a very close copy of a 1980 Square D hyfro crimper other than insulated handles.

The Square D cost $1600- in 1981

[Slob]

That $50 Amazoom crimper is a very close copy of a 1980 Square D hyfro crimper other than insulated handles.

The Square D cost $1600- in 1981

I had an electric Burndy at work and my golly it was $2400.00 when purchased in 1999 with several sets of dies. Also had a Milwaukee and it was right up there too.