Automatic wire stripper advice

On the fine stuff, I generally use my teeth.

Regards,

DAve

I strip my wire with an "ordinary" wire stripper, a plier like tool with sharp edged holes that close and cut the insulation. You have to hand pull on the wire to force the cut insulation off. I have a Jenson

45b100 for #30 to #22 AWG and a Klien 11045 for #16 to #10 AWG. I don't remember what I paid for these tools but I would expect to be able to replace them today for maybe $10 each. I also have an automatic stripper (Speedex Trig o matic) that I seldom use. It has a set of insulation cutters and a gripper device. It will both sever the insulation and pull the cut part off the wire with a single squeeze of the handles. It's a fancier tool and might cost $30 or so today. If mine broke or disappeared I probably would not replace it, where as if either of my ordinary strippers were lost I'd be buying a replacement within a week.

David Starr

Buy it. The nice thing with strippers like this is you don't run the risk of nicking the wire or cutting off strands unless you deliberately place the wire in the wrong slot on the tool. About the only better stripper would be a pair of thermal strippers.

Sounds like miscegenation between the LL Bean and Victoria's Secret catalogs. Teddies with quilted linings?

Hardly, Beavis. Thermal strippers work on the same basis as resistive soldering stations, except instead of pointed or shovel-head shaped electrodes, you have electrodes that have a U-shaped electrode on each side of the handpiece, and this wire has a bump in it where the wire goes. Place stripper around the wire you want stripped, activate the handpiece (usually by a footswitch), squeeze the handpiece ends together, and pull back on the handpiece. This strips the wire nice and clean.

(tempted to reply "Yeah, I know Butthead" but I'll resist)

And one of the nice things about them is much less chance of even a minor nick to start a otential failure point on the conductor.

Still, the thought of some corn fed honey (the Valkyric woman cop from Northern Exposure?) in a Minnesota farmer hat, earflaps and all, is diverting. Would be great with Randy Newman singing "You can leave your hat on".

There is a line of wire strippers used in the precison electronics industry called No-Nik (?sp) which are made in specific sizes to exactly fit standard wire gauges. They're so good that they are routinely used as the wire stripper of choice for a technique called Wire-Wrap in which a stripped end of a 30 ga. wire is wound around a .025" sq. post so tightly that the corners of the post are embeded into the wire to hold it in place sufficiently tightly to satisfy most MIL-spec vibration tests. One nick in these wires is fatal. While they retail for over $50 each, they're available irregularly on eBay around $10-15 each. If you're really worried about reliability, there's almost no alternative. Norm

snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com spake thus:

The automatics are nice, but no way do you have to spend those kind of $bux. I got mine at a discount tool place for about $6. Made in China, I use them all the time and they work great.

As others have pointed out, they prevent the wire from being badly nicked, if used properly. That means you have to use the right set of "teeth" for the gauge of wire you're stripping.

They're even better than the ordinary pliers-type of stripper: squeeze the handles, let go, then pull, and the insulation comes off. No picking at it with your fingers or fingernails.

Check Harbor Freight

they've probably got them.

David Nebenzahl spake thus:

Here's Harbor Freight's version:

$5.99

My only complaint about these, which look identical to my Chinese-made ones, is that the stupid plastic handle grips fall off and are useless. Throw them away, and bend the handles outward slightly for more joy.

The odds of you ever seeing one of these in person absent you spending a very large amount of money are too small to calculate.

For you, there is always Playboy and the bathroom.

Steve Caple wrote:

You're projecting again!

No Steve, sadly I am not. We know your love life consists of this. What is preventing you from finding a real woman is it your looks or something deeper?

Steve Caple wrote:

snipped-for-privacy@aim.com spake thus:

Um, I think Steve is, er, married. So much for your theory.

Yep, for 28 years, and after a 40 day courtship. She's in by the fire finishing knitting our god-daughter a baby sweater for the shower she's giving her this Sunday.

X-No-Archive

It is obvious you two are the same person using two names. Sad you even post to yourself?

And Steve (or is it David) ly> >

It's the box he lives in.