Recommended electrical tools

I'm just getting into wiring my airplane, and beyond the dikes/strippers etc found in any toolbox, I think my only specialized tool is my coax crimper.

So, I'd like to purchase a set of hand tools to do the basics: spade and ring terminals, Molex pins, etc. ATS has several units for sale. Does it makes sense to buy separate tools, or use the swappable dies?

What do I not know? Thanks.

Daniels Manufacturing Corporation (DMC) makes the absolute benchmark stuff as far as electrical tooling is concerned--you can sometimes get away with less, but any money you spend on good tools now will pay off both in quality of life and quality of work later.

As a bare minimum:

• Ideal Stripmaster-style strippers, the 16-26 AWG dies will cover 99% of what you need;
• DMC AFM8 crimper and K13-1 positioner for the many, many D-sub pins you'll be dealing with;
• A decent, ratcheting style (or better) ring terminal crimper--reference the DMC DCT4 series or the AMT4001
• Flush or semi-flush side cutters like the Xcelite 170M
• Good pair of dikes--8" Knipex

That should at least get you pointed at the enemy.

Tools

lrgabriel said:

Daniels Manufacturing Corporation (DMC) makes the absolute benchmark stuff as far as electrical tooling is concerned--you can sometimes get away with less, but any money you spend on good tools now will pay off both in quality of life and quality of work later.

As a bare minimum:

• Ideal Stripmaster-style strippers, the 16-26 AWG dies will cover 99% of what you need;
• DMC AFM8 crimper and K13-1 positioner for the many, many D-sub pins you'll be dealing with;
• A decent, ratcheting style (or better) ring terminal crimper--reference the DMC DCT4 series or the AMT4001
• Flush or semi-flush side cutters like the Xcelite 170M
• Good pair of dikes--8" Knipex

That should at least get you pointed at the enemy.

Click to expand...

What he said.
FYI, shop around for the DNC crimper. I got one pretty cheap on Ebay then bought the positioner from Stein. A good stripper is worth a few $1 bills. Pun intended.

wirejock said:

What he said.
FYI, shop around for the DNC crimper. I got one pretty cheap on Ebay then bought the positioner from Stein. A good stripper is worth a few $1 bills. Pun intended.

Click to expand...

Well, that's good, because I'm not spending $360 on a crimper.

There's a time for buying the best, and then there are times when better is the enemy of good enough.

$350 for a Dsub crimper is roughly an order of magnitude too much, unless you intend to do several hundred crimps. A day. For decades.

B&C & Stein (& host of other sites) have good enough Dsub crimpers for ~$30-$50 that work fine and will last through more a/c builds than most of us could ever hope to finish. You'll also need both sizes of insertion/extraction tools for Dsub pins.

You'll need needle nose pliers (small ones). Flush cutting diagonal cutters (small ones). Contrary to popular belief, soldering is a skill worth having. Equipment is too diverse to pick one brand/model, but this is another case where better can be the enemy of good enough. You'll need PDIG crimpers. Again, better is.... You'll need crimpers for RG58 coax, and its newer variations. Again....

Pray that you *won't* need molex style crimpers.

If you've ever made a mistake, a wire tracer can come in handy:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Telephone-Phone-Network-Cable-Tester-Wire-Line-LAN-Cable-RJ-Tracker-Toner-Tracer-/282290006663?hash=item41b9cbaa87:g:i20AAOSwEzxYU2vs

FWIW,

Charlie

I haven't bought a crimper/tool from stein yet that I was disappointed in. They work well and cost effective. They worked perfectly and at a good price.

I did buy the AFM8 from eBay and the second one was excellent. I made my own positioners, reusing the blue holder of a different "size".

Suggestion: Post a WTB for the AFM8 here before venturing to eBay - it will be already proven.

Oh - I got a temperature controlled soldering iron from the hobby shop. That temp control is fantastic.

Tools you'll need..

1-D-sub crimper. (Chinese works just fine unless you are crimping contcts 9-5 m-f for decades like some of us )
2-HD positioner for above crimper
3-insertion/removal tools for both standard/HD contacts
4-ideal automatic stripper
5-coax/terminal combo crimper (2 dies)
6-side/flush cutters (maybe a couple of these!)
7-molex crimper
8-heat gun!

That's a good start at least IMO

Basic Multimeter (DVM). Continuity check feature is nice to have.
Tie wrap guns are handy too.

How about a heat shrink tube label maker? I wish I had bought a label maker before I started wiring up my Tosten grips. Amazon sells several Dymo label makers that are pretty inexpensive and the heat shrink tubing packs contain five feet of tubing and can also be bought also on Amazon for around $23. Once you start running wire it's nice to know what wire connects to what pin. Labeling the wire with heat shrink tubing near the connections really helps.

Labeled tubing is cool. But if you (me) have no memory, it's difficult to get the tubing over a connector...

A regular label maker with high quality tape works fine to make 'flag' labels, which can be easier to read.

Better is....

Soldering Station

For a soldering station, Bob Nuckolls recommened a $100 one in his posting dated Feb 19, 2017 12:07 pm here.

Yeah; we seem to be playing Girl Friday for all these guys who won't go to the source themselves.........

Personally like the hakko fx-888d soldering station. Good price for adjustable digital 65w station. Bought them for my high school kids who are taking electronics.

Coax (RG-400) stripper and appropriate crimper (avoid the RG-54 black home video/cable stuff...stick to aircraft quality cables for your coax runs).

You can pick up an AMP 59250 (red-blue) PIDG crimper on Ebay for usually around 125 or so (new they're like $1500 ). And a big thumbs-up on the AFM8...get it on Ebay, then whatever positioners you need (K13-1, K41, K42, etc.) and you can't go wrong.

I have the K-SUN BEE3 label maker that takes cartridges of heat shrink, and it worked great...ALL my wires have labels at both ends, which makes any debugging much, much easier.

PNLBLDR said:

1-D-sub crimper. (Chinese works just fine unless you are crimping contcts 9-5 m-f for decades like some of us )
2-HD positioner for above crimper
3-insertion/removal tools for both standard/HD contacts
4-ideal automatic stripper
5-coax/terminal combo crimper (2 dies)
6-side/flush cutters (maybe a couple of these!)
7-molex crimper
8-heat gun!

That's a good start at least IMO

Click to expand...

Good list, thank you!