ENGINEER Precision Crimping Tool (Size S) Made in Japan Handy Crimper with Interchangeable Die Set: PAD-11

The good: Feels solid and well balanced. Interchangeable dies means you don't have to buy a whole new tool to occasionally crimp and uncommon size. Hinge action is super smooth and has no side-to-side wobble. Perfectly aligned dies. The bad: The grips take a little getting used to, still feels a little weird in my hand. Other thoughts: They were more costly than the usual bundled fare you find in "all-in-one" combo boxes of connectors / wires / tools, and I was a little curious as to whether or not I would actually see enough difference to make up that price. As you can tell from the above, I did. These have a much smoother overall finish, better action, and the dies worked great on mine without any adjustment or alignment needed. The wiring on my Arduino projects goes faster than ever.

Rather than buying the PAD-11 tool with just the 11S die for $70, I decided to return it, and get the PAD-01 kit for $94 (plus shipping) instead; the kit includes the handle and the 3 different dies (11S, 12S and 13S) that can be used with the handle (each one of the dies goes for about $28 online), carrying case, allen wrench to replace the dies and adjust the handle, and 6 empty plastic boxes as to store terminals. The price is from an on-line HOBBY store that I would consider the KING of hobby stores. Using the 11-S die, i was able to beautifully crimp terminals with the 0.7mm (~ 0.027') wide barrel. These are so small that I needed magnifiers to be able to locate the terminals inside the crimping tool die. I would recommend this tool to anyone who wants beautiful, professional looking crimps.

This is the only affordable crimper I have found that will consistently crimp SH (1.0mm) terminals properly. That is due to its having a 0.7mm crimp position. It's only downfall in that regard is that the crimping channel has a narrower lead-in angle than others, which requires that the terminals be slightly pre-crimped so that the "wings" of the crimping area are parallel. Otherwise the terminal will not seat itself properly while crimping. No other crimpers I have used have this issue to the same degree. The crimper documentation does show that however. The bottom line is that it is worth the slight extra effort for the extra capability that these afford.

Wow. Just wow. I bought a these PAD-11 crimpers to work with TH025 tabs and sockets in automotive work. The crimpers even came with to-the-point instructions on the packaging. The TH025 measure exactly 1.5 mm on the crimp wings when parallel. Engineer's instructions say to use the next size up, which would be 1.6, and best results are with the crimping wings parallel to each other. Included are diagrams for good and bad wing alignment with the tool die. My first crimp turned out perfect! It looks factory, and is secure. That is all I wanted, and I got it. So glad I didn't cheap out on one of the many other ratcheting tools that claim to do both insulation and wire crimp simultaneously. For small projects, this is fine to do the two parts separately, and allows you to verify the wire won't pull out before you crimp the insulation. If you need anything more than this, you'll have to graduate to the industrial tools costing hundreds or more. The wire cutter is sharp and the stripping notch is handy. There's also a convenient rule printed on the side to measure something up to 10mm. The orange handles are not cheap plastic, but some sort of soft elastomeric grip. I'd add a photo, but the TH025 crimps are only 1.5mm wide, so hard to photograph without my pro gear set up.

The die blades are a bit on the thin side. It may be good for certain connectors but some of my connectors required more than one crimp on the conductor side.

Clean machine finish. Narrow so you can see both sides of the area to be crimped. You control the crimp pressure or how much squeeze you want on the insulation hold/strain relief. Did not deform the SPH crimp (JST) using the 1.6 slot for the bare stranded wire crimp or using the 1.9 slot for the insulation crimp. Created a good uniformed roll esp. for the insulation hold. See the pics for the empty crimp tests, right out of the package on the first try (even left some paint marks on the crimp which this crimp tool should break-in and have smoother action over time). Interchangeable jaws, lock to keep jaws closed for protection, nice pivot point. Beats the Engineer PA-09 red colored handles micro crimp tool, by far.

I bought this (No. 11 die) based on various online reviews recommending it for JST-GH crimping (Genuine SSHL-002T-P0.2 contacts) as an alternative to JST’s expensive tooling. The die slots were physically small enough to crimp these tiny contacts, however the resulting crimps are completely unusable. Conductor crimping was alright and passed pull testing, however the contact is slightly bent during the process which sets you up for failure crimping the insulation and inserting it into the GH housing - something a lot of 3rd party crimpers suffer from. No die could crimp the insulation. Too large of die and you can’t insert it into the housing, and too small of die breaks the contact, no nice middle ground. I believe someone else had the same experience and returned their tool because I received the tool with its packaging already opened with no attempt at making it look new again, and there was usage marks at the pivot joint and cutting blades. This is Amazon’s fault not Engineer’s, and the tool quality seems to be pretty nice.

These tools work on extremely small parts and require you to get a "feel" of the work. Don't expect it to work the first time. Very precise tool.