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Re: [TowerTalk] Crimp or Solder

To: "Kelly Johnson" <n6kj.kelly@gmail.com>, towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Crimp or Solder
From: Jim Lux <jimlux@earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 19:30:34 -0700
List-post: <mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
At 04:36 PM 6/21/2007, Kelly Johnson wrote:
>So, where can I find a stripper that will correctly strip my coax?
>
>I just switched to crimping about 2 months ago because I've had too
>many problems with poorly soldered PL-259's.  It's gonna cost me about
>$200 next week to rent a lift so I can replace a bad feed to my 40m
>yagi.  I'm 99% certain it is another bad solder job on the PL-259.
>
>I bought 20 crimp-on PL-259's and a stripper a couple of months ago
>from www.rfparts.com.  I'm borrowing a friend's crimper.  The problem
>is that I can't seem to adjust the stripper to properly strip the
>coax.  I'm using 9913F cable.  The stripper is part #RFA-4087.  It was
>an expensive stripper and the documentation suggests that it can be
>adjusted and is suitable for 9913.  Unfortunately, I can't figure out
>how to adjust it to fit the connectors they sold me.  Essentially, I
>need 3 "strips", right?  I need it to strip all the way down to the
>center conductor, then nother strip that retains the dialectric, but
>cuts away the braid and finally a third cut that only cuts the outside
>jacket.  I see no way to do this with this stripper.  I improvised and
>used the stripper for 2 of the 3 cuts, but then I had to do the rest
>by hand.  Certainly not worth the money I paid for it.  Is there a
>better one?

I have an old Paladin adjustable stripper. It has a cassette that 
holds the blades in little plastic holders in slots on (as I recall) 
2mm spacings. The holders are asymmetric, so you can actually place 
the blade with a precision of 1mm.  You use a tiny allen wrench to 
adjust the blade height.  Mine has three blade holders, but I seem to 
recall seeing that they had both dual and triple blade 
versions.  They definitely sell both the blade holders and the 
cassettes separately. The idea is that if you have several different 
coaxes you need to strip, you can preload a cassette for each kind, 
and just swap them in.  Of course, since the cassettes cost almost as 
much as a whole stripper, it would probably be better if you just 
bought several purpose specific strippers.

I also recall that it took a dozen or so tries to get the stripper 
fully dialed in, and probably half that many connectors.  But once it 
was done, it was a breeze to do a connector.  I could probably strip 
and crimp a connector in a minute or so.

In your case, I'd call the mfr of the stripper and ask for advice.



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