Ethernet crimp tools

[wfay]

I had a cheap cat5 crimper that eventually broke on me. I am looking for a good crimper at a reasonable price. Any suggestions other than just going to Office Depot, Radio Shack, or Home Depot and picking something up that looks decent?

I don't mind spending a couple bucks but don't really have the patience for ordering online -- need to get this project done this weekend if possible, which means local stores only.

Any suggestions?? Thx.

 

[cmetz]

If you want a good crimper, buy the AMP Heavy Duty crimp tool. It's big, heavy, metal, and my ten year old crimper works pretty much as well as the day I first got it. Great tool. About $120 when I bought it a decade ago, somehow I doubt it's all that much cheaper now. Probably mail-order only, or maybe a pro cabling supplier. If you're in a position, professional or hobbyist, where you're going to make a lot of RJ45 or 11 cables, this is the tool to get IMO. (well, unless you're moving up into the automatic machines, which is seriously pro stuff...)

If you need it now and/or cheap, the Ideal crimp tool from Home Depot is probably a good bet. Ideal is good mid-grade stuff. They are a bit overpriced. But their stuff is a bit better quality / more durable than the generic stuff. The super cheap generic crimpers are hard to work with and break, and for the cost difference you'll just make it up in time and hassle.

 

[WannaFly]

I HIGHLY recommend the Ideal Telecom line of tools - just about all my networking tools are by Ideal and they are great, pretty cheap too (~$35 each on ebay) . They are nice and sturdy and make great tools.

 

[ITJunkie]

Originally posted by: cmetz
If you want a good crimper, buy the AMP Heavy Duty crimp tool. It's big, heavy, metal, and my ten year old crimper works pretty much as well as the day I first got it. Great tool. About $120 when I bought it a decade ago, somehow I doubt it's all that much cheaper now. Probably mail-order only, or maybe a pro cabling supplier. If you're in a position, professional or hobbyist, where you're going to make a lot of RJ45 or 11 cables, this is the tool to get IMO. (well, unless you're moving up into the automatic machines, which is seriously pro stuff...)

If you need it now and/or cheap, the Ideal crimp tool from Home Depot is probably a good bet. Ideal is good mid-grade stuff. They are a bit overpriced. But their stuff is a bit better quality / more durable than the generic stuff. The super cheap generic crimpers are hard to work with and break, and for the cost difference you'll just make it up in time and hassle.

Good call cmetz...I bought an Ideal at Home Depot and it has worked well for me for the last few years. Nothing special but it gets the job done.

 

[narzy]

ideal is ouchie on the wrist if you do alot of crimping, I have a paladin crimp all? anyways check out paladin tools for a really good crimp tool, it will run you about 60 bucks.

 

[MrYogi]

I used the crimper I got for free from Compgeeks when I bought the 1000ft cat5e cable. I thought that I was bad at crimping because I wasted several plugs and none of the cables worked. I realized that it was the crimper that was bad and nothing to do with my crimping.

Anyway, I bought a Belkin crimper from circuitcity for $19.99 that worked like a charm. More than 100 crimpings later, it is still working great.

 

[JesseKnows]

I also have the Belkin which I got about 2 years ago when there was some deal with Dell.

I am not sure whether its the tool or the user but I find that some contacts are not solid, wiggling the cable gets it to (dis)connect. I can get the job done with it, but not always the first try. I have done about 20 connections in the 2 years

 

[Joony]

Paladin Tools also makes good tools!

 

[JackMDS]

I have a crimpper but I do not use it any more.

For long runs I use solid core CAT5 installed in keystones.

For short run I buy commercially made Stranded core CAT5.

The price is so low that for the price of one good Crimpper I can buy 50 commercially made short patches.

:light:

 

[wfay]

Thanks for all the comments guys, I appreciate it.

 

[narzy]

what idd you get?

 

[wfay]

Heh I was just about to post my response and I see someone beat me to it!

So I got the IDEAL RJ11/RJ45 crimper from Home Depot for hmm $37 with tax. Excellent price on a nice tool. I already used it this weekend on a few cables and it is a quality unit. My HD didn't have any other crimpers so I was sorta locked into this one. Of course I can always return it inside 30 days if I find a better deal on a better unit, so I am still looking I guess given the general comments in this thread.

You can pay a few dollars more and get 20 RJ11 heads and 10 RJ45 heads but it didn't seem to be worth the money considering I have zero intention of doing RJ11 any time soon and it was like $8-10 difference. Of course it was the same crimper tool in similar packaging.

So, what's a great place to buy quality heads and perhaps boots as well? I'm in Jacksonville, FL and don't mind waiting a week for shipping as I have enough supplies for this project, but would like to stock up on a couple hundred of each just to have them around. Local prices are horrible like $1-2 per head it seems...

 

[Fiveohhh]

Originally posted by: MrYogi
I used the crimper I got for free from Compgeeks when I bought the 1000ft cat5e cable. I thought that I was bad at crimping because I wasted several plugs and none of the cables worked. I realized that it was the crimper that was bad and nothing to do with my crimping.

Anyway, I bought a Belkin crimper from circuitcity for $19.99 that worked like a charm. More than 100 crimpings later, it is still working great.

I have one of those too, and an ideal one, I use whichever one I find first and only problems are if I don't get the wires in all the way, but thats user error

 

[wfay]

Looks like a decent set of tools for the price.

Overstock

 

[calbars]

I have a very old heavy-duty AMP crimper. Very expensive, but well worth it in the long run.

But like a JackMDS said, it's rare nowadays that you should have to crimp cables yourselves.