Till now, I have used a self-adjusting wire stripper. It was quite good but sometimes stuttered during stripping. It didn't have an option to regulate the length of a stripped area of wire. I have decided to try something which allows me to regulate the stripped area. I bought the Weidmuller Stripax, which supports wires from a range of 28-8 AWG. In comparison to the old one, we have the three options of regulations here:
- we can adjust cutting depth,
- we can adjust the stripping length,
- there is an option to quickly set the partial stripping: standard (set by us length), 5 mm or 3mm.
The option of fixed stripping length is really nice, especially if we are working with a fixed wire size and want the same effects, e.g. preparing connection wires for breadboard. The small drawback is when we often change the wire diameter, then we need every time to adjust the cutting depth a bit.
After a few weeks of usage, I have the following observations:
- generally the device is handy and comfortable in usage. I mainly worked with wires in the range of 24 - 20 AWG. The good thing is that during stripping it does not damage the isolation of the wire in the place where it grabs the wire (in the case of softer isolation, there could be some clamp marks.). Almost the whole device is made from plastic, apart from cutters and some parts of the mechanism, so I hope that it will last for long in case of working with a bit thicker wires, e.g. 14 AWG. Maybe when there will be an occasion for an update of some electrical installation, it will be a good time for more durability tests for it. The old one was made whole from metal, so it is an area to more testing,
- the wire cutting option is also nice and smooth,
- on the bottom handle there is rubber that performs the role of limiter. Once it happened that she fell out of her place, so it's something worth mentioning to not lose it.
Here is a short video of stripping the 24 AWG wire:
A few more examples:
