Factory crimp tools for servo connectors(formerly Quality vs budget servo crimp pins)

[Miracle Boy]

Originally Posted by Atomic Skull

That is probably why the Hansen tool does better with DuPont (servo) terminals. The rounded die is closer to what the official tooling is like:

When I see that pic, I just want to turn that adjuster knob, just to find out what it does. I'd need to know. Go on Atomic, turn it!! You know you want too!! ;-)

MB

[blue92ehsi]

Originally Posted by Four Stroker

Atomic is our crimp master. I agree that the ancient 1980 or so servo pins should be replaced by something like these: "Harwin makes a version of these terminals they call them M20 connectors."

As I have stated previously, hobby crimps from the manufacturers are crap in recent times. Probably jobbing out to sweat shops with the wrong tool.

Barrel crimps as above over tinned wire have the resistance of a soldered connection (even 40 years later) - about 1 milliohm. I have measured Futaba crimps with up to 1 volts drop at 2.5 Amps - about 400 milliohms for two mated pins. Admittedly the worst yet but I threw away a handful that were over 100 milliohms. Voltage telemetry got me started on this testing. Bad crimps are crashing people - brownout.

can you explain how one would do such a voltage drop test? sounds like a great way to verify that a crimp is acceptable before we take flight


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[blue92ehsi]

this was a test crimp I did with the PA-09 and the Hansen female pins on a futaba servo.

black wire is my crimp
red wire is factory

i would like to know where to buy those futaba style terminals where the contact points are left and right instead of top to bottom




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[Atomic Skull]

Originally Posted by Glenn Goodlett

There are a bunch more crimpers that look like the HT-95. I'm just not sure what they do. I wish I could find a comprehensive list somewhere.

HT-17
HT-48
HT-49
HT-66 for coax insulation
HT-104
HT-110

Some of those are for Maxi-PV terminals.

[Hawkboy000]

I got a good pair from Mac Tools. Work on trucks all day so it's very useful for crimping all kinds of connector pins.

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[Atomic Skull]

Originally Posted by blue92ehsi

this was a test crimp I did with the PA-09 and the Hansen female pins on a futaba servo.

black wire is my crimp
red wire is factory

i would like to know where to buy those futaba style terminals where the contact points are left and right instead of top to bottom




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That looks an awful lot like a molex milli-grid terminal but smaller.

If you want something similar check out Molex-SL, the connector box has two contacts that grip the male pin form the sides. Hansen's "latching polarized connectors" are actually Molex SL. They don't have the three position non polarized housing but they can be found on Digikey. They use 2.54mm spacing and are fully compatible with 0.1 pin headers.



Three position plain housing here:

https://www.digikey.com/product-deta...2801-ND/115005

[Four Stroker]

"can you explain how one would do such a voltage drop test? sounds like a great way to verify that a crimp is acceptable before we take flight" = blue92ehsi

Well sure. Just run say 2.5 Amps through a connector pin pair. Take a small sewing needle and poke through the insulation on each side. Connect a VOM on the millivolt scale. Also try an equal distance of plain wire. This give you the insertion loss - connectors in line vs. just wire. To get 2.5 Amps use your charger set to 2.5 Amps and insert the test pins in line with a battery lead. Could use a regulated lab power supply if you have one but everyone has a charger. Ohm's law V=IR. Example, you run 2.5 Amps through a pin pair and measure 10 millivolts drop. Then the crimp/pin resistance is R=V/I = 0.010/2.5 = 0.004 Ohms or 4 milliohms - good.

You can do just a single crimp by touching the needles on each side of the crimp - say end of pin and one in the wire.

Ace Dude, this is the same as bridge IR testing.

[blue92ehsi]

how would one do this to test a crimp on a servo? can't hook a charger to that? i could plug the servo in to the fbl unit and measure voltage on the power wire but not on the ground wire and signal wire


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[Andy from Sandy]

Originally Posted by blue92ehsi

can you explain how one would do such a voltage drop test? sounds like a great way to verify that a crimp is acceptable before we take flight


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I worked at a company that used a lot of crimp connectors. They tested them with a strain gauge to see that it could withstand a certain pull force.

[Four Stroker]

You can test a few dozen scrap crimps and find out how you are doing. Factory crimps are not tested. I would be surprised if they plugged in each servo to see if it worked.

[Atomic Skull]

Originally Posted by Four Stroker

You can test a few dozen scrap crimps and find out how you are doing. Factory crimps are not tested. I would be surprised if they plugged in each servo to see if it worked.

Usually what they do with commercial electronics is pull samples from each batch for testing to make sure the equipment isn't malfunctioning. In a production environment you aren't supposed to be using these hand tools, they have machines that turn out thousands of crimps per hour. You give it a bandolier of terminals and a spool of wire flip the switch and it starts crimping away. Servo manufacturers aren't crimping the leads themselves they are just buying premade crimps in bulk.

[Atomic Skull]

Originally Posted by Atomic Skull

That looks an awful lot like a molex milli-grid terminal but smaller.

If you want something similar check out Molex-SL, the connector box has two contacts that grip the male pin form the sides. Hansen's "latching polarized connectors" are actually Molex SL. They don't have the three position non polarized housing but they can be found on Digikey. They use 2.54mm spacing and are fully compatible with 0.1 pin headers.



Three position plain housing here:

https://www.digikey.com/product-deta...2801-ND/115005

The non polarized three position housing is MOLEX 50-57-9003

Overall this connector family seems superior to Mini-PV for our application, there even seems to be reasonably priced budget tools specifically designed for it. The only problem would be the shroud around the male connector, on the Molex SL it just has bare male pins in the same housing. However the three position non polarized housing might fit in a Futaba type or universal shroud (not a JR type though due to the bevels at the corners) The housing also seems to be slightly longer than the Mini-PV one though I can't be sure. It's designed to mate with 0.1 pin strips though so it should work.

[Glenn Goodlett]

Originally Posted by Atomic Skull

The non polarized three position housing is MOLEX 50-57-9003

Overall this connector family seems superior to Mini-PV for our application, there even seems to be reasonably priced budget tools specifically designed for it. The only problem would be the shroud around the male connector, on the Molex SL it just has bare male pins in the same housing. However the three position non polarized housing might fit in a Futaba type or universal shroud (not a JR type though due to the bevels at the corners) The housing also seems to be slightly longer than the Mini-PV one though I can't be sure. It's designed to mate with 0.1 pin strips though so it should work.

It looks like 20AWG wire is out of the question for this connector family or at least I didn't see any.

[Ace Dude]

Originally Posted by Atomic Skull

The non polarized three position housing is MOLEX 50-57-9003

Overall this connector family seems superior to Mini-PV for our application, there even seems to be reasonably priced budget tools specifically designed for it. The only problem would be the shroud around the male connector, on the Molex SL it just has bare male pins in the same housing. However the three position non polarized housing might fit in a Futaba type or universal shroud (not a JR type though due to the bevels at the corners) The housing also seems to be slightly longer than the Mini-PV one though I can't be sure. It's designed to mate with 0.1 pin strips though so it should work.

50-57-9003 is part of the Molex SL family.

With all the hassle of finding contacts, housings, and crimp tools that work together I'd probably just pick a known system (e.g., Molex SL) with readily available components and stick with it.

I have some genuine Anderson Power crimp tools I purchased 12+ years ago. They were expensive, but no more guessing or worrying about finding the right contacts/housings, and every crimp comes out perfect.

Shame many of these smaller contacts don't support 20AWG.

[Four Stroker]

It's probably because the header pins are not up to 20 AWG. As above, this pin is obsolete for our application. Some aftermarket manufacturers (with hand crimps) do put 20 AWG in these pins - worst crimps I have ever seen.

A bad crimp at the end of 20AWG is not better than 22AWG with a proper crimp.

[Atomic Skull]

Originally Posted by Four Stroker

It's probably because the header pins are not up to 20 AWG. As above, this pin is obsolete for our application. Some aftermarket manufacturers (with hand crimps) do put 20 AWG in these pins - worst crimps I have ever seen.

A bad crimp at the end of 20AWG is not better than 22AWG with a proper crimp.

The HT-73 is for crimping 18-20AWG wire to Mini-PV terminals and FCI Amphenol makes 18-20AWG Mini-PV terminals for this application.

https://www.digikey.com/products/en?...41-000LF&v=609
https://www.digikey.com/products/en?...33-000LF&v=609

I have no idea how you are supposed to get an 18AWG wire into a DuPont housing when a 20AWG barely fits but there is an official tool and terminals for it at least.

Realistically the wire isn't the bottleneck when it comes to current it's the crimp terminal.

[Four Stroker]

Some aftermarket battery guys do 18 AWG. Atomic, are any of these crimpers intended for solid wire ?

Atomic has provided a long list of crimpers to look for used. If anyone is really interested in making their own, buy one of these. You have to buy pins and shells that go together! If anyone ever gets around to testing some Hansen Hobbies crimps, I am sure they will be seriously disappointed.

[Mike680]

Originally Posted by Four Stroker

If anyone ever gets around to testing some Hansen Hobbies crimps, I am sure they will be seriously disappointed.

As I've posted more than once, the Hansen (deluxe) crimper is fine. Plenty of people use them and like them just fine. They were the de-facto recommended crimpers here in the past. And, again, just because something that may be better comes along, that does not negate the goodness/effectiveness of anything else that was in use before it was "discovered". I've done many crimps with my Hansen crimper and have never had one fail, nor have I been "disappointed". If peoples' crimps are too loose or whatever because they didn't adjust it, then that's on them, not the crimper.

[Ace Dude]

Originally Posted by Mike680

As I've posted more than once, the Hansen (deluxe) crimper is fine. Plenty of people use them and like them just fine. They were the de-facto recommended crimpers here in the past. And, again, just because something that may be better comes along, that does not negate the goodness/effectiveness of anything else that was in use before it was "discovered". I've done many crimps with my Hansen crimper and have never had one fail, nor have I been "disappointed". If peoples' crimps are too loose or whatever because they didn't adjust it, then that's on them, not the crimper.

It doesn't matter how many times post something, everyone's experience, even with the same product, is different.

[Mike680]

Originally Posted by Ace Dude

It doesn't matter how many times post something, everyone's experience, even with the same product, is different.

It shouldn't be if they're using it correctly along with adequate pins, wire, etc.