These are fancy wire strippers that automatically adjust to the guage of the wire you’re trying to strip. They are somewhat expensive as they retail for $55. However the cost does come with benefits over a cheap pair of wire strippers. Lutro0 does not make or modify these and so they come in the manufacturer’s packaging:
Opening it up revealed a slightly dusty tool:
The magic happens in the mouth:
The red part is an adjustable slide that lets you choose how much of the plastic around the wire gets stripped. For 16/18AWG crimping I would have liked the length to be able to be reduced just a small amount further as the minimum setting provides extra wire that is useless but more likely to get caught and decrease the chance of a perfect crimp. Lutro0 mentioned that such a tool does exist but it is far far more expensive than this one:
The benefits of such a tool are of course repeatability. A manual wire stripper not only requires adjusting of the strip length but also the depth of bite for each type of wire you work with and they can be finicky and you will end up with less precise strippings. They also can stretch the PVC wire covering if you don’t get a good cut, and if you overcompensate you’ll be biting through the wire itself. Automatic strippers therefore are the way forwards. However not all automatic strippers are the same. I’ve also tried cheaper brands and found them to be unreliable. The PVC won’t get cut every time, nor will the cut be as exact. After using this tool for a while I’d have to say that it is worth paying the extra for.
The tool also has a wire cutter built into the top of the tool. Because of the safety shielding around it, it should only be used for rough cuts and not for exact cuts. For sleeving we care about accuracy and so I would avoid using this feature.
Summary:
An almost perfect wire stripper where the only improvement would be a smaller minimum cut.
Where to buy: Here!
