Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/03/15/self-adjusting-wire-strippers.html
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Have used another brand of these a few times before throwing them out. Yes they often work. But a proper stripper with hole for the gauge of wire you are stripping is much more reliable; these sometimes don’t quite bite through the insulation and other times bite through some strands of wire. I think the issue is that different wires of same gauge can have different thicknesses and compressibility of insulation.
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Meh, I just use my teeth!
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I wire machinery pretty often and find these to be indispensable:
Granted, they cost 8 times as much as the ones shown in the post.
Also, for crimping ferrules:
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Nice. I see they have an adjustment for insulation diameter.
The orange bit in the picture is actually a stop that allows you to set strip length. The stripping jaws are comprised of teeth set into flexible backings. You can preload the flexible backing with a slide on the top of the tool, that’s what adjusts for different wire gauges.
The preload adjustment is my only complaint - it’s difficult to change the setting with any kind of precision and you often have to do some trial and error to get everything just right.
But once it’s set it’s really repeatable. Makes stripping and crimping signal wires a breeze.
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For some types of wire/insulation these are great. For others they cannot be made to work reliably no matter what you do or adjust.
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I bought two of the orange ferrule crimpers for desk use when I don’t want to walk to the lab and they are great for the price.
Got my finger stuck in a similar device when I was a kid working for an electrical contractor. That was a scary minute or two, but I wrestled my finger back out without stripping my fingertip.
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Does anyone have any suggestions for the kind where you pull parallel and away from the wire rather than at 90 degree? (In other words, the wire goes into the end of the tool rather than the side, and has a T shaped handle or similar to pull on.) Trying to save my wrist from recently developing tendonitis and repetitive strain, and I have a few rooms full of outlets to wire soon.
I am always amused by fancy wire strippers. Having been an electronic tech my whole career and ran several shops. The newbies always try the fancy new wore strippers ( even I did once,). Things go fine until the fancy wire strippers get little pieces of wire and/or insulation stuck in a key place. Now I’ve got a guy spending hours trying to figure out why his wire stripper quit working. The last thing they looked for was those little pieces of material that got stuck in the strippers. Doesn’t matter how much you try to show them “it’s the fancy new wire stripper at fault ” but there’s no way that can be the problem. When they finally give up I showed them the cheapest wire strippers ever and that with a small amount of practice you can strip wires from the largest to the smallest wires used in the normal world. Cheap wire strippers are one of the best ways to strip phonocartridge wires and other tiny wires. Best reason for having them is nobody will swipe ‘em off your service bench so they are always at hand when you need them.
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There are outlets that don’t require stripping. The outlets have holes with teeth behind that handle the connection no stripping required. Alternatively you can get a kid to help you and let them do the stripping
I have also seen motorized strippers but I’ve never used one.
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Yeah, I’ve always found nature’s wire strippers to be most convenient.
That sounds terrible.
Maybe it just reminds me of the old switches you could put in-line to a lamp cord that bites into the insulation, I’ve had more than one of those burn to a crisp unexpectedly. And you’re going to potentially run up to 15 or so amps through that?
I won’t use the push in connections either, always screws, and I always pigtail to downstream connection rather than using the outlet as the connection. I guess I like extra work. And also a bit of extra robustness and servicability.
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Teeth work well on many times of wire insulation. However there are some pretty tough insulations out there in the wide world of electron highways. Nowadays there are many insulations that are actually molded on the wire these will strip your teeth out of your head. I had a kid working for me that did the stripping wire with his teeth. He did it despite my warnings but this time he tried it on a recently powered up guitar amp which never had the capacitors bled off. 500 volts DC later he found himself on the other side of the room under a work bench and was ready to “go on the ride again “ vowing to continue stripping wire with his teeth. Unfortunately I was unable to fire him as he was the nephew of the owner. He eventually got tired of getting shocked and joined the Army.
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Occasionally I come across some pretty tough insulation that makes a proper tool worthwhile, but 98% of the time not.
I have to admit, once I figured it’d be okay to strip live phone wires with my teeth, as long as I only touched one at a time… The theory was sound, but one of the wires touched me on the cheek.
Yeah. 30V or so through the mouth wasn’t much fun.
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Came here for the strippers. Was strangely not disappointed.
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I dream of wires but beware the teeth in the holes.
If you do it often enough, you’ll get greenish stains in the notches in your teeth. Generally not a problem unless you are doing it every day as a profession, though.
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