Chrome Plated Dies & 7GA Dies...? by Compass Marine How To

Compass Marine How To | all galleries >> Welcome To MarineHowTo.com >> Making Your Own Battery Cables > Chrome Plated Dies & 7GA Dies...?

previous | next

Chrome Plated Dies & 7GA Dies...?

That is some pretty odd chrome plating.? Also interesting to note they completely skipped over 1GA wire, which is readily available, but made up 7GA, which is not.. Wow!!!!

Until HFT can get the AWG die size conundrum sorted out I would advise buying a tool from a company that actually knows what they are talking about when it comes to crimping large gauge wire.

While it may not be a horrible tool for sizes smaller than 4GA, this is not a tool for anything larger than 4GA....

If you do decide to buy this tool there should be NO pinching when the lugs are crimped. It should look like the 4GA crimp shown.

You should also expect to burn through about $30.00 - $40.00 in wire and terminals figuring out what dies work with what AWG wire & lugs. You are on your own on figuring this out. I have given you the first one, the 1/0 AWG die works with 4GA starter lugs, but the rest are on your buck.. (wink)

Canon PowerShot S100
1/100s f/4.0 at 5.2mm iso80 full exif

other sizes: small medium large auto

previous | next

dugndeep		20-Apr-2014 14:00
With my Harbor Freight crimper I just have to go a size bigger in dies so that being said,2 awg is as big as I can crimp with the 1/0 die.I recently put a new ground cable on my welder which is 4 awg and used the 2 awg die and it come out perfect.I took a 8 awg butt connector and crimped it using 8 awg wire and then cut it in half where I crimped and it was solid like a solid piece of copper.It was cold formed to it's finest is all I can say.

Mike		15-Apr-2014 15:58
I finally received my crimper, but the following might not apply to you, as mine was not from Harbor Freight, mine one was for Australian market and is labelled YQK-80. I tried it out with a bunch of 2GA (33mm2) starter lugs and battery cable and have to say that the version I have has oversized dies if anything. The die marked 35 barely grabbed the lug, the die marked 25 (~3GA) compressed it slighly, and the die marked 16 (~5GA) made a crimp similar to the one you got that is labelled "Passable". Using this die resulted in a tiny amount of winging on either side, probably around 0.1mm, not noticeable unless you run your finger across it. That means the smallest wire I can crimp with this crimper would be 10 mm2 (~7GA) using the die marked 6 mm2 (~9GA) and visually it matches the one you photographed as 7GA. A couple of other problems with it is that the dies do not align correctly until they start exerting pressure on the lug, so have to be kept straight/aligned manually with fingers until then, and also one of the dies is too long and as result the pair is difficult to inset. I guess for a cheapie it works OK.

dugndeep		13-Apr-2014 15:24
I took the 7 awg die and with a solid carbide bit,drilled it out to a bigger size so I could crimp 1/0 awg terminals.

dugndeep		13-Apr-2014 15:18
I bought the Harbor Freight hydraulic crimper after reading the reviews about the undersized dies.I crimped a 4 awg starter flared lug to 4 awg Excelene welding cable using the 2 awg die and it came out perfect.I know by looking at it that it was a good cold formed crimp.

Mike		11-Apr-2014 23:13
I wonder if they have finally fixed the issue (at least in China) as I have just ordered one off eBay and only read the reviews afterwards (oops). In Australia wires are usually labelled by their area, and 4GA would be closest to 20mm or 25mm wire. Looking at the pictures, your 0GA die has the jaws that are roughly a quarter of the overall die width, looking at the pictures off the eBay page it seems to correspond to the die marked 25mm. Fingers crossed they've fixed the issue, will report once I finally get some crimps done :)

Guest		02-Dec-2013 00:13
excellent write up thks bob