Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Crimping banana plugs???

How the heck do you get the wire to stay in?? I have tried crimping two now but the wire (12 gauge) pulls right out. I tried crimping with pliers to get a more snug crimp and one actually split. I'm starting to feel like an idiot because I have done plenty of wiring work with crimp-on connectors but have never had this problem.

BTW I am using this kind:


Anyone ever work with these??? I bought a few extra just in case something like this happened, but I don't want to keep on trying and use them all up.

I think it depends on your crimping tool. I had to try 3 different tools before I found one that would work consistently.

Where did you find the one that works the best???

I had a similar problem with these banana plugs. They are very brittle and break up if crimped the wrong way. They do not crimp at all like normal electrical crimp connectors. I have a fairly expensive crimping tool used for crimping electrical ground wire crimp sleeves. It puts a long divit in a cylinder. What I found is that I had to crimp gently so that the divit was pushed down into the cylinder compressing the wire. If I squeezed too hard it would break the divit out and a piece would just fall out and the wire wouldn't hold. If I crimped any where other than in the center of the cylinder the flattening action would cause the plug to fall apart. I ended up not being particularly happy with these bananas. I found these instead: http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat%5Fid=412&sku=29785. You need a crimping tool that has a u shaped recieving area that fits the banana's cininder and which can press a dimple into the middle of the cylinder. Soldering is the other option.

Hey I don't know how stuck you are on the banana's that you got but these are quite reasonable. I bought quite a few of them from this guy and found he's great to deal with.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3083002616&category=32838

So those work good Lorenzo?? The ones I got were off of ebay too. Got the link for someones post here. Guess they had good luck with them. Not me unfortunantly. I might give those a try.

I didn't care for having a large conductive surfaces exposed across the back of my receiver that can be shorted across and actually was replacing these with the ones that were the subject of this post.

I went with these. They cost $7 per pair, so though a little more expensive than the others, but they're still in the ball park. Also no soldering and no crimping mean they are easily reusable.

Rat Shack Banana Plugs

You can't tell from the photo, but all you do is unscrew the plug (you can see the line where the two parts separate about midway down the base of the banana plug), stick the stripped end of the wire up through the lower half of the separated plug, gently bend the individual strands of the wire back down over the lip of the lower half, and then screw the top half of the plug back on. They hold tightly, and securely. I'm very happy with them.

On the web page you can check to see if your local Radio Shack has them in stock.

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Hey I don't know how stuck you are on the banana's that you got but these are quite reasonable. I bought quite a few of them from this guy and found he's great to deal with.

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I had some similar ones to those before and found that they came loose too easily unless the wire was soldered or glued into them.

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Where did you find the one that works the best???

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It was a 20+ year old one of my father's. No clue what brand it is. It just looks like a regular crimper to me, but it somehow worked better than my two.

They worked great for me. I have 12 gauge wire and it was just a little tight to fit the coating inside the end so I just shaved a little off with a razor blade and no problem. There is no crimping, it is a screw on friction fit with a little metal plug inside that you push in with the wire.