Females!

[Hippogriff]

Is there a special trick you need to do, or - indeed - something completely different, when you are crimping the female Dupont terminals, as opposed to the male ones?

I have been crimping male ones fine. I can still crimp the males ones fine today - I've done two just to prove it to myself (and that I'm not going crazy).

When I've crimped a male one, I put it in the correct place on my crimping tool and press down until the tool clicks and then releases. The male crimp and wire slides into the black plastic housing and it locks nicely in place, ready to use.

I have not yet managed - after many failed attempts - to crimp a female one so it works. I do all the same stuff. I use the same wire. I put the female crimp into the same place on my crimping tool and ratchet it until it's closed... then it releases. I end up with a wire stuffed into a bent female crimp that I can straighten-out but it won't go nicely into the black plastic housing and, even if it does, it's not guaranteed to stay there... often coming out the other side if I try to stick anything into the hole.

I'm really frustrated by this.

I look at the two crimps side-by-side and I must say they appear to be smaller... but I think it's an optical illusion... the crimp bodies are actually the same size, but - obviously - the female one does not have the sticky-out-bit.

 

[audioguru]

The title of your thread got my attention.

 

[jpanhalt]

Are the females the type that are retained by an indented finger on the plastic housing or by a barb on the metal part?

I use mostly the former and have a few observations:
1) Not all plastic housings are the same. The indent in the female pin is very slightly different for each type of housing. If you look at the housings, you will see that the fingers are different.
2) Over-crimping makes them bent, as you observed, and insertion then becomes sloppy.
3) Too much wire inserted is a problem. It makes them too bulky to fully insert into the plastic housing.

The good news is that once I got used to it and have matching parts, I rarely have a problem. Once in awhile, I will grab the wrong housing (usually one with short fingers), and of course, that does not work. Occasionally, I will see a "bargain" for the female pins. That often doesn't work out. My regular pins are the Berg type:

Everything I have said applies to the pins on 0.1" centers. For the smaller JST connectors, I don't even try crimping. I use IDC.

John

 

[Hippogriff]

Thank you for the response.

I bought this - a pack of 100 male and 100 female terminals - **broken link removed** and they arrived together.

I crimped another male terminal yesterday - again, just to prove to myself - works fine. My tool is a ratchet thing, it clicks and clicks as you bring the handles together, then on the final click, they've gone as far as they can go and they auto-release.

I take the tool as far as it will go with male terminals and with female terminals - I don't think there's a case of "over-crimping". In my mind I am crimping to the level the tool wants me to.

Yesterday evening I did one more male terminal perfectly and I trashed another four female terminals.

I did the same thing with both types of terminals... same wire, same length exposed wire, same teeth on the tool, same position, same crimping pressure.

I have, however, just noticed that the female terminals I have received from LittleBlue Pigs do not exactly match the image in the picture on their website. These I have are all silver and there is no gold coloured section. I am going to write to them, asking if they have sent me the right thing out. They're always quick to deliver stuff so I hope that they will be as quick in answering a quick question.

 

[Hippogriff]

I have tried to take a macro picture with my camera... I mean, they look different, right? But maybe they do look different in that subtle way - something is going to be inserted into them, of course - or has my supplier possibly sent me the wrong gubbins? This is the first time that I've started playing around with these Dupont crimps, it was all going so well with the males, but it all went to pot with the females, and it's the females I really need... a story much akin to real life.

 

[dougy83]

The title of your thread got my attention.

Yeah, same I think it was because he used an exclamation point.

 

[jpanhalt]

The difference can be subtle. In the Berg, there is a distinct gap between there the retaining finger latches and the spring loaded area for the pin. The ones your are using don't seem to have that and have a more tapered transition. That doesn't mean they won't work. But, you must use the housing designed for them and an appropriate crimper. There is no moving part on the male pins, but there is on the female pins, so I am not surprised that the female pins are more sensitive to crimping. I am assuming your pins are retained by springy plastic lever and not a barb on the back of the pin.

John

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

Well, the first set of crimpers I owned were for uninsulated terminals. Then I learned of the insulated terminal variety.

Work had a Berg connector crimper: https://store.crimptools.com/54-berg-dupont-crimp-tools- or similar. Any production tool, should be the EXACT match.

I think a lot of tools tend to "strangle" or them at the neck because they are not fully supported.

I've done pretty good with most terminals with an AMP non-racheting crimper. I ended up making AMP CPC tools my de-facto standard because the pins inserted and removed like butter. I intended re-usability, but it never happened. They systems didn't get dismantled in my lifetime there.

Aside:
I made stuff that was still there 30 years later. e.g. A modular box for a temperature controller. The temperature controller was long discontinued, but the box lived on using the old temperature controllers. Someone re-pourposed the same box, to use a much smaller, cheaper controller.

The controllers consisted of a temperature controller and a proprietary SCR unit that connected with 4 wires. The controller had for be ordered for the specified thermoucouple. So, to start off, there was a miniature TC connector housing that would accept any miniature connector and a grommet that would allow a TC pigtail.

Then there was a huge 30 Amp DPDT switch, that totally disconnected power, because a lot of our systems had direct access to the leads. A power cord and a Nema 5-15. A front panel fuse of your choosing.

Since a fair number of controllers had Rem in/ Setpoint; it made sense to have EXT/INT and ON/Zero switches on the front. Thus. we could read the temperature when the controllers were "off".

the EXT connection was brought out through the back and so was "Measured Value". Invaluable for strip-chary recorders. Later replaced by auto-tuning controllers.

To round thongs out, a POT was used for current limit It may or may not have been connected. All unites were sent back to have the same wiring,

The company later went with much longer controllers with a more conventional output like 4-20 mA,

==

The same "modular design" continued with some new features. 120/240 inputs (Not auto changeover) with the same twist lock designed for both.
120 VAC control power. one/two fuses on the front panel depending on 120/240. Lower fuses protected the SCR fuse, $1 vs $30 a pop.
A generic connector that could be re-configured. RS232 and.or analog etc. An output twist lock.

The ON/OFF switch actually disconnected the output via a relay and indicated so with a light when on. There was an EXT/INT as before. But now, they had to have power fail drop out as an optional feature.

Later, a few had to have a supervisor or a second thermocouple for protection. ALL modular; all in a 19" rack case.

 

[ronsimpson]

The title of your thread got my attention.

100s of views and only 3 helpful posts.
I did not view to be helpful.

 

[Hippogriff]

I have spoken with my supplier... they are going to try and crimp some female terminals with the tool I also bought from them. If they can do it successfully, then they can teach me... if not, we'll go from there. The tool is out of stock at the moment, so they need to wait for one to come in, the good thing is that they responded quickly to my query (especially for such a small thing).

I have also purchased some other female crimp terminals from an eBay seller... 50 for £1.49 with free postage - worth a punt, just to check that aspect out.

 

[throbscottle]

Can't say I know anything about these things, but looking at the photo, the bit that crimps the bare part of the wire looks shorter on the female ones.