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I find a electricians crimping tool is all that I have needed for installing connectors on single wires. I also use it to cut off smaller screws. see http://www.amazon.com/TEKTON-3775-Elect ... mping+tool

I will be using this for my new job.
As others have pointed out, they use different dies for the job at hand.

My question is why is the Kline so much cheaper. Thought I may be missing something. In the electric trade Kline is considered top of the line.
Once you use a ratchet crimp tool, you will wonder why you never had one before.
When doing electrical wiring for the military, Your crimp tool has to be calibrated so my last employer supplied the tool.

cincinnati wrote:I will be using this for my new job.
As others have pointed out, they use different dies for the job at hand.

My question is why is the Kline so much cheaper. Thought I may be missing something. In the electric trade Kline is considered top of the line.
Once you use a ratchet crimp tool, you will wonder why you never had one before.
When doing electrical wiring for the military, Your crimp tool has to be calibrated so my last employer supplied the tool.

If I was in need right now for a crimper, I would be looking seriously at this Amazon offer. Add $16.99 for the VDV211-041 die set and you are prepared to crimp just about everything that might come along for #22 and larger wire (including coaxials).

Klein is very reputable and this offer provides more than 75% of typical crimping needs.

My personal experience (here at home) is with Crimpmaster who offers a very similar tool combination.

My experience before I retired was with AMP but their price for these tools is prohibitive (at least for me). I do not believe AMP does combination tools. A special tool for every unique crimp job.

Both the Klein and the Crimpmaster provide "adjustable" crimp pressure. I don't know if that is "pressure on the crimped joint" or "pressure required to squeeze the handle". I have never adjusted mine.

The reason for the ratchet and 'adjustable'/'calibrated' is to insure that the crimp is done with sufficient force to do so reliably. The tool cannot be removed from the terminal unless it is squeezed all the way thus insuring minimum crimping force and distance.

The handle squeeze force is not the objective.