> I bought the ratcheting crimper from Powerwerx, slightly > cheaper than West > Mountain Radio and no worry about bad crimps.
I just replaced the Power Poles that I had messed up on my first attempt by *slightly* squishing the sleeve with pliers (just to hold the wire, I thought) and letting too much solder flow onto the blade part. No matter how hard I pushed the wires, the connectors refused to snap into place in the shells. Scraping off the excess solder didn't seem to help. I pushed so hard with pliers that the wire and insulation started to bulge, making the problem worse not better. I should have followed the instructions more carefully! Second time around after cutting off the first attempt, I just pushed the wire home in the connector sleeve, held the fitting vertically in a bench vice and carefully soldered into the sleeve part, with no attempt to crimp or squish it first. The wire fits quite snugly into the sleeve so that the soldered joint seems plenty strong enough, probably stronger than the Power Pole to Power Pole connections anyway. Time will tell! This time, the connectors easily pushed into the shells and snapped right into place as intended. Job done. 73 Gary ZL2iFB PS For other ZL builders: Jaycar Electronics sells 30A and bigger Power Pole clones for about NZ$5 a pair but the packets don't currently include the little pin that locks the red and black shells together. I guess you could superglue them instead. ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
