There was some controversy when this tool first launched. Nils of MDPC-X claimed that this tool was not the same as his tool. This is somewhat true as Lutro0 has modified the tool slightly, however they do have the same beginnings. As can be seen the tool looks identical:
The bottom tool is Lutro0’s with the blue handle, and the top is the MDPC-X tool. The blue grip is the exact same shape but has a slightly different texture and feel. If anything it has a bit more grip and certainly looks better. However the slight difference in the crimper is not only the handle, it’s in the “mouth” of the crimper itself.
The change is subtle and can’t be seen at this level, but if we zoom in we can see some bare metal. Lutro0 milled out the crimp openings in order to better crimp 16AWG wire in the larger opening, and 20AWG in the smaller opening:
These are far more useful sizes than the standard crimper. Comparing the standard crimper tackling 18AWG (silver color) and 16AWG (copper color):
The results were somewhat ugly on 18AWG with the early revisions of the crimper, as it gave up a good crimp on 18AWG in favor of 16AWG, however the latest gives a clean crimp on AWG18:
The MDPC-X crimper does still work with both 16AWG and 18AWG even though it’s not designed for 16AWG, here are some crimps with both wires:
Here’s Lutro0’s crimper with two types of 16AWG wire:
After completing a lot of crimps of both wires I’d say that the 16AWG definitely favored Lutro0’s modifications, while the 18AWG crimped well with both tools. Both however were close and I would choose based on the wire size you want as well as price and availability. This of course makes sense as the tool was modified to better work with 16AWG and we should expect some tradeoff because of that.
Using the LC Custom 16AWG wire and the LC crimper, I followed Lutro0’s sleeveless heatshrink guide and completed a 24 pin extension. My suggestions to those who are new would be to use the smaller less stifff Lutro0 16AWG wire as it’s much easier to crimp. When sleeving always take your time and be precise otherwise the sleeve will not line up the way you expect it to. Here’s my end result clamped down in order to try and “train” the shape:
Summary
This is a very good tool that is at least as good as MDPC-X’s excellent crimper for 18AWG but adds improvements to enable easy 16AWG crimping. Heartily recommended!
Where to buy – Here!
