jsharkey

jsharkey

Well Known Member
I am getting ready to run strobe wires and need to crimp them on to the pins that snap into the the three pin plugs used for the bulbs and power supply.

Is there a special tool for crimping these pins onto the wires?

(Similarly for other pins on avionics connectors? I have pin extraction and insertion tools but not wire crimpers.)

Jim Sharkey
RV6 - Wiring!!!!!
 
Last edited:
Molex Crimpers,

Are what worked on mine. Stein has them and they work good. There are less expensive ones.
greg
 
jsharkey said:
(Similarly for other pins on avionics connectors? I have pin extraction and insertion tools but not wire crimpers.)
Click to expand...

I have about four different crimpers I use all the time - Molex, D-Sub, Coax, and the king of all, the ones you use for but splices and ring lugs (as you can see, i really have no idea what the right terminology is for all of those). It's pretty hard to do a nice wiring job without them as a minimum, but I have seen people do it (I know I've used the wrong crimpers on non-aviation projects before, and it gets a bit "iffy").
 
As Iron flight above I have the same four crimpers, I noticed after I received them that they are in fact the same body with replaceable jaws for the different pin/connector types so you may be able to get one complete crimper for say molex and then get the jaws only for the coax etc. Trade off will be the slight pain of swapping jaws versus the cost of the extra bodies.
 
Picture of what you need (came from Stein)
img1208ev7.jpg

Good instrustion here. http://www.aeroelectric.com/articles/matenlok/matenlok.html
 
Molex or Amp "Mate-N-Loc" connectors?

As Frank Karasti posted, Stein Air has some very reasonably priced crimpers to do the job and the aeroelectric reference, gives good instruction in how to use them. My crimpers from Stein actually came with no instructions whatsoever! It might be worth mentioning that not all references to "Molex" connectors on this site and others, are not actually made by the Molex company. The connectors on our Whelen power supply and supplied with the wiring kit from Van's, are in fact Amp brand "Mate-N-Loc" connectors. From what I've learned, pins & sockets are not interchangable with a Molex brand connector. Anticipating some reworking to be necessary, I was able to locate the proper Amp "Mate-N-Loc" pins & sockets at Action Electronics (Action-Electronics.com). $5.95 buys a bag of 25 pins under part number GC-60619-1. For the same price, you can pick up 25ea matching sockets under part number GC-60620-1.
 
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