[RE-wrenches] Ferrules for large fine-stranded wire.

[William Miller]

Friends:



Thank you for all of your input on this question.  I feel it only right I
report back how this turned out



I tried a crimper like this:





[image: HYCLAT 10 Tons Hydraulic Crimping Tool Battery Cable Lug Terminal
Crimper with 9 Pairs of Dies, 12 AWG to 2/0 AWG Wire Crimping Tool]

It left a jagged ridge on both sides of the ferrule where the dies met.



The crimper below was suggested but I have not tried it:

[image: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/716TxXmojoL._SL1500_.jpg]

This was suggested but I have not tried it either:

[image: image0.png]



I had tried a similar crimper to the two above but it expanded the width of
the ferrule beyond what the lug would accept.



Here is what several of you suggested:  Slip the ferrule over the strands
and insert it into the lug and let the set screw do the crimping for you.
We tried this but the 4/0 ferrule when not crimped would not fit into the
battery lug on a fortress Envy 12.  The Envy 12 installation manual
indicates a wire range of 1/0 to 3/0 and the placard inside the wire
compartment door says up to 4/0.  The lug seems tight for 4/0.



Here is what we did:  Back in the days of the Trace DC250 (maybe 1988-ish)
we had trouble wrangling all of the strands of a fine-stranded 4/0 battery
cable to all fit in the lug without a bunch of strands poking out.  I found
some thin (~35 gauge) copper sheet at a local hobby shop.  I would clean
and polish it shiny and cut a little strip of the sheet slightly wider than
the strip length and long enough to wrap about 1-1/4 times around the
strand.  I would wrap it tightly around the strands and hold it temporarily
in place with a thin cable tie.  I bent the end of the sheet into a
chamfered shape to help guide the assembly into the lug.  After I got it
started I would snip the cable tie, fully insert the cable and tighten the
set screw.  I never had one of these connections fail.  This is what we did
on the Envy 12 battery cables.



The next day we removed all of the set screws and inspected the
connections.  They all looked great:  The copper sheeting had not twisted,
it had a nice, shapely dimple and, peaking up into the lug, the cable
looked to be well seated.



I hope this feedback helps someone, someday.



William



Miller Solar

17395 Oak Road, Atascadero, CA 93422

805-438-5600

www.millersolar.com

CA Lic. 773985
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org/attachments/20250902/25bc0c36/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image006.png
Type: image/png
Size: 97595 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org/attachments/20250902/25bc0c36/attachment.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 26697 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org/attachments/20250902/25bc0c36/attachment.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image007.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 9735 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org/attachments/20250902/25bc0c36/attachment-0001.jpg>