Goat Tool Day 13
17Today is a good day to strip wires! Warning! I got long-winded. (I guess I blame me for the endless problems I’ve had posting this. Everything goes terribly wrong.)
Stripax Pro: Short version, get this one if wire stripping is part of your daily routine.
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(Ok, that finally worked, here’s another chunk.)
The only downside is the price, which is why I mentioned “daily”. It’s hard to justify $90-150 for a wire stripper unless you use it a lot. But if you do, this one just plain works. I was introduced to it about 25 years ago when I started a new job. Based on my past experience I looked at it, and said to myself “That thing will never work”. But it did, and it does. The orange block in the jaws is just a depth stop, set it for how much insulation you want to strip, and you can do it repeatedly. On the top there’s an insulation thickness adjustment, but in real life, you don’t need to mess with it very often. I just leave in the middle of the range most of the time.
(Still breaking things. Here’s another piece.)
Somehow the thing just auto-adjusts to the wire & insulation, and does the right thing. And it cleanly strips the insulation, even though its only cutting it in two spots. The only insulation it has trouble with is Teflon, but they make a special model for that. And I’ve occasionally seen double-jacketed cable, where there’s a thin clear layer over the top of the main insulation. That needs two passes, one for the clear, and one for the regular insulation. And thick silicone insulation cuts with a bit of a taper to it, instead of a clean break.
It also has a handy, high leverage wire cutter built into it.
And the Stripax makes a satisfying ker-klack when you use it. What more could you ask for?
There are a variety of models in the Stripax line, and they’ve changed some over the years, and the brand has been sold once or twice. Mine is a Paladin, but Greenlee seems to own it now, or maybe it’s Weidmüller. It also gets rebranded.
(Now some links to break things. Yep, broke it again. Ok, may have found the offending link.)
Ok, it was the Stripax Mini photo (among others) that was breaking things.
The Harbor Freight knockoff mangles wire as much as it strips it. Stay away!
(Time to get cocky, and post the rest.)
The Stripax isn’t much use on wire-wrap wire (ultra tiny 30 gauge), it tends to break the wire instead of stripping it. But you just need the right tool for the job, like this one from CK Tools.
Not cheap at $50-100, but great for tiny gauge wire.
Another specialized stripper is the Jokari cable knife. It’s designed to slit the outer insulation on multi-conductor cables. Set it for the right depth, the place it however far down the cable you want the outer jacket removed, then rotate around the cable a couple of times to make the cut, and then pull it to the end of the cable to slit the jacket from your cut to the end of the cable.
For coax cable, the Weidmuller CST is brilliant because it does a three-level strip (center conductor, braided sheath, outer jacket) in one pass.
Here’s a cheaper auto-adjust stripper.
This one is kind of middle ground between the above auto stripper, and the conventional strippers. It only works with specific gauges, but it pulls off the stripped insulation for you. Some have a strip length gauge as well.
Conventional strippers, with one hole or notch per wire gage are probably the best tool for occasional use. They cleanly cut the insulation, without damaging the wire. (If you use the right hole!) The worst thing you can do when stripping wire is nick it. If you outright break it, you know you’ve got a problem, and will fix it immediately. But a nick will fail later on. And it’s a nearly guaranteed failure, the only question is how long it will take. And these strippers are affordable. There’s a wide variety of them. The downside is they only work for specific wire gauges.
This set has two different wire gauge ranges.
Stay away from this one, it’s designed to nick wires of all sizes. It CAN work if you adjust it properly for each wire size, but nobody does that in real life.
I carry the Leatherman Squirt ES4 all the time. I got mine from Make: magazine, mostly for the labeling!
Instead of the usual Squirt scissors or pliers, it has 20 - 12 gauge wire strippers. Along with the usual assortment of multitool tools. The currently sold ES4 is different from the original one. The aluminum handles have a bit of a curve to them, the tweezers were deleted and scissors added, two sizes of flat screwdriver were traded for one, and the tiny, fully formed #1 Phillips screwdriver was traded for a “2D” version of a Phillips driver.
Most of the strippers mentioned by name have similar products made by many other companies. The exception seems to be the Stripax, I’ve not see a good knockoff of it.
Oh yea, a note on wire gauge: a bigger number means smaller wire and less current carrying capacity. 18 gauge is common household cord wire. 12 gauge is heavy duty extension cord or normal internal building wiring. 30 gauge is tiny electronics wiring. Also, gauges are even numbers only.
@blaineg Wow, finally got posted. That was way too much work!
@blaineg Warranty voiders ftw!
@Fuzzalini Yep, and they were engraving Bomb Disposal Tool on the pliers model.
@blaineg Can you explain this or link me to an explanation?
I’ve done quite a bit of electrical/wiring work in my home (replacing/adding fixtures, outlets, etc.) and I’m sure I must’ve nicked some wires - now you’ve made me nervous.
I’m working my way through your goat-posts and really enjoying them!
@DennisG2014 The nick causes a sharp stress point and any vibrations or motion or expansion & contraction will be focused at that point, and it will fail sooner than an undamaged wire.
A deep enough nick also reduces the cross section of the wire at the nick, and increases it’s resistance, and can cause overheating.
With house wiring you’re not going to have the kind of vibration & motion you will in a vehicle. But expansion & contraction happen as the house heats and cools.
On the other hand you’re dealing with 120 volts that’s probably on a 10-15 amp breaker, so there’s a lot more energy. A lot of house fires are electrical, and they are almost always caused by bad wiring in one form or another.
If you’re nervous, it’s worth double-checking your work.
http://www.ncwhomeinspections.com/Nicked+conductors
@blaineg Yikes. Well, I don’t think I’ve ever ‘nicked’ a wire deep enough to cause that kind of trouble.
Sounds like it needs to be pretty deep relative to the size of the wire and, afaik, I’ve only made little surface scratches at most.
Although, now I want to take a look at the GFCI outlet I installed in my bathroom that literally burnt out instead of tripping the fault circuit.
I was using it for a 1500 watt space heater at the time, but before I replaced the outlet, the old standard one handled it fine - and it had been wired to the light switch with a length of lamp cord!
I’ve found all sorts of ridiculous garbage work done by the previous homeowner - I’m far more afraid of something he’s done that I haven’t discovered yet causing a fire than anything I’ve done.
There’s more story behind that outlet and the work done by the previous owner, but I’ll spare you.
Once it burned out, I just disconnected it and now run a heavy-duty, appliance rated extension cord from another room/circuit to run the heater and whatever else I might need to plug in in the bathroom. Haven’t had any issues since.
I’ll have an electrician do it up right, as soon as I get around to hiring one one of these years.
Now if I could just find a crimper for a reasonable price that actually does a good job.
I used to have a Daniels barrel crimper with half a dozen turrets I picked up at an industrial liquidation auction for like $30. It was in a toolbox that was nabbed out of my truck at a jobsite. Whoever jacked it probably had no idea the actual value of the tool. Or even what it does for that matter.
@ruouttaurmind Yes, the ratcheting crimpers are the only way to go. I scored one from a freight damage warehouse sale.
Though I have some almost reasonable priced ones for sale. I’ll look around.
I remember before all these cool mechanical “nick-free” strippers there were some electrical ones that melted the insulation. Used to use them in a lab on some NASA spec builds (this was a long, long time ago!) Don’t know if they still exist, but they were cool. Also probably a health concern depending on the insulation. I was usually under an extractor in a clean room, so I didn’t give it much thought.
@mehcuda67 I’ve seen those, but never used them. I can certainly see the value for space or aircraft applications where a nicked wire could literally be a matter of life and death.
Back when we used to make custom length Ethernet coax cables, we had the multilevel cable cutter/strippers and the special ratcheting crimping pliers. The big monsters for doing the thick backbone cable, along with the clamp-on fixture and drill for the vampire taps are long gone; I have no idea what happened to them. But we still have the thinwire crimper and stripper. Its probably been 15 years since we used them.
Squirt E4 is a required daily carry device for me. My current one is the same as yours. I also had an EOD Tech branded one, and my first was a Radio Shack one. I try to pick up backups whenever I find one for not an arm and a leg, and I have two that I need to send in to Leatherman for repair except I fear they will replace them with the inferior ES4 models.
The actual 3D Phillips head screwdriver is the must have part for me. I can’t tell you how many laptops have completely disassembled and reassembled with just that tool.
@djslack leatherman will repair your model if you check the box that has sentimental value and only repair do not replace.
@CaptAmehrican That’s very good to know, thanks!
@djslack As I remember, when it first came out you could only get it from Radio Shack and Make:, I happily paid a bit more to have mine not say Radio Shack.
I picked up a couple of the newer model as backups and gifts, and while it’s nice to have the scissors, I think it’s a downgrade in every other way.
@CaptAmehrican Very good to know! I hadn’t gotten that far as I just assumed because they were discontinued they would be replaced.
@blaineg I got my hands on a PS4 along with one of my backup E4s in a lot on eBay. I was not impressed. The Phillips screwdriver is in contention with the knife blade for the most frequently used tool and it let me down, and dealing with that flat one is not a good trade-off for having scissors I will rarely use.
@blaineg @djslack yeah leatherman does customer service right. My skeletool is my every day carry, I also like my wave.
/youtube the stripper
So, how mehny of you call your favorite stripper “the wife”, or do you just keep a pair on the side?
I’ve used all of those types of strippers at one time or another. When I can find the right size in the lab toolbox, I prefer the blue-handled “conventionals”. For romex, I often use the yellow-handled Kleins, or just my side cutters. (My Kleins have a notch in the cutter that reminds me to always check the circuit breaker myself.)
@walarney Hey, my Kleins have the same warning notch! Great feature.
@macromeh @walarney A friend put that warning notch in the end of a screwdriver for me.
Does anybody still do wirewrap? It’s getting hard to find through-hole parts, and PCB’s are relatively inexpensive now.
@walarney Very few, probably. Breadboards are easier to prototype on.
@walarney I’ve had occasion to need something wire-wrapped in the last six months or so. It was to confirm something would work before wire-modding a pcb.
@walarney Years ago I used wirewrap on some personal projects, it’s good for prototyping.
When I worked at Evans & Sutherland years ago, the card cage backplanes for the flight simulator computers were wirewrapped. There was a large degree of customization, so it made sense.
The operation was half automated. A robot would point at the right pin, but a human did the wiring with a powered gun. The backplanes were something like 2-3 feet square, and had hundreds, if not thousands of wires.
Not my idea of a fun job.
@blaineg That sounds exactly like the “wire integration units” used in 747-400s. But I hope they’ve quit doing that by now.
@walarney Oh yeah, plenty of wire-wrapped circuit boards at work for me.
They can do so much, including strip wires, just keep 'em clean.
@tmilker that is hands down the creepiest gif I’ve seen this morning
@tmilker This makes me uncomfy
@tmilker The gif actually makes me less uncomfortable than the thought of using my teeth to strip wires.
Cringe!
@blaineg Yeah, I’d never do it either. I just wanted to post something different and when I saw that GIF it sealed the deal.
@tmilker I used it to creep out a coworker.
Look what showed up on CoolTools.
https://kk.org/cooltools/klein-kurve-wire-strippers/
@blaineg I’ve always liked good strippers.