In an article entitled, “Good Wiring Practices” in a “How To Article” under “Controls and Electrical” by Mike Polsgrove on this website, reference was made to the use of Robo-Grip cam-action pliers to crimp IDC’s with good results (used by Andy Sperandeo). The article specifically did not recommend the use of slip-jaw (Channel Lock?) pliers to crimp IDC’s. I’m about to start wiring my layout and want to use IDC’s to connect the power drops to the power bus. An official 3M crimping tool is very expensive ($64.00 on Amazon) but Robo-Grip pliers are under $20.
Has anyone used the Robo-Grip pliers for this application? Do they work as well as the official 3M crimping tool? The Robo-Grip pliers come in a 7" and 9" size. Which size is better for this application?
I used channel locks and after a year no issue. If you use pliers try to make sure the bayonet clip in the IDC is centered so when you are clamping it doesn’t slip off (spoken from experience)[:-^]. Have fun.
Klein is good stuff, but it is a single tasker and only can be used for crimping the IDC connectors. The Robo-Grip pliers have 1001 uses. The key is straight downward pressure, not off at an angle. The official tool and Robo-Grip pliers close the jaws while having the two faces remain parallel to one another. Standard slip joint pliers close at an angle - the nose touches before the rear face of the jaws touch. On an ICD connector this can potentially result in only one side of the blade being fully seated in the wire, and the part closer to the hinge of the pliers not being fully seated. End result, unreliable connection.
Of course I just sodler it all, it’s no harder really, and with a good wire stripper like the one made by Klein I can get a good tight mechanical joint that in many cases has held up for months until I went back around and actually soldered them all. Like everythign else in ths hobby, I do it when I feel like it - I could never spend a week solid solderign feeders, I would go nuts and be bored out of my skull. So one night I’ll solder a few connections, another night I might lay some track, another night I’ll just run the train. The point being, you don;t have to go nuts doing the same thign over and over and over again, you can alternate tasks and maintain a higher level of interest. I think that’s what happened most recently, I had a deadline to get a bunch of my cars equipped with detectable resistor wheelsets so that’s all I did, a few each night. Sort of burned me out, I’ve done practically nothing on my layout since then and that was back in June. Soldering feeders night after night for weeks would do that to me as well, so normally I strip and wrap them to make the mechanical connection and hit them witht he solderign gun when I feel like it - eventually they all get done, but it DOES seem to work fine in the meantime.
I want to thank everyone for their input. I think I’ll go with the 9" Robo-Grip pliers since I have a fairly large hand. At under $20, they’re a lot cheaper than the 3M crimping pliers.
Regular pliers or slip\channel pliers work well if the larger diameter bus wire is stranded and the smaller feeder wire is solid. My experience is with 12AWG and 18 gauge.