On Sun, 21 Jan 2007, C Fernandez wrote:
Tothwolf wrote:
Recently, someone on eBay managed to get their
hands on a spool of
genuine DEC flat cord, bought a knock-off MMJ type tool (I saw him
purchase it) and started selling poor quality MMJ cables.
How are the cables poor quality? There isn't much to them. If it's the
right wire, right connectors, and the crimper crimps as it should, how
is that poor quality?
Don't fool yourself, there is a lot involved in making high quality cables
than just crimping on a couple of plugs.
I haven't seen his connectors, so I can't say if he is using the "right"
connectors or not, but I do know that I've been buying AMP brand MMJ plugs
and I have genuine AMP tooling. The junk crimper he bought off of eBay is
a knock-off of the non-ratchet Ideal Telemaster. Anyone who has done much
in way of cable assembly knows how poorly those type of tools preform.
Short term, a cable made with that type of crimper might test ok, but it
isn't going to produce the consistent crimps that the AMP crimper does so
it may exhibit problems later.
I'll admit that I do tend to put a lot more time into making cables than
most people do, but I want something to be 100% reliable (when used under
reasonable conditions, of course).
To quote a late friend of mine, and I believe Tony has also said this a
couple of times:
I can't afford cheap tools :)
-Toth