Side by Side Comparison of: Irwin Tools vs TRENDnet

My "all-in-one tool" is good, but I ran into problems working in tight spaces. The crimping was in the middle of the tool (awkward at times) and then the leverage was also not so good at that point. After checking around, I found the right balance of tool I was willing to buy, for a price I was willing to pay. The Irwin tool crimps at the front, and the 10 inch tool has plenty of leverage. It's forged and very solid. As a do-it-yourselfer. this thing will never wear out for me!

I have had these 1.5 yrs now. They still work great. still sharp, still solid, Not loose like other reviews, and i use these 6 days a week and I'm not easy on them. I install car audio and most all 12 volt electronics in vehicles. Comfortable and easy squeeze compared to my buddy's crimpers

I like this crimper. I do my own wiring at home and on my cars, and the one thing really bothers me is when I have to crimp connectors and they come out after all the hard work.I have had a similar tool for many years and it got lost as things do or someone took from my tool box and walked off with it, as things happen.I saw this on amazon for a great price, the average price for a crimper like this is $25, which is not bad, but lets face it, we all know it could be a little cheaper.Purchased it on October 29th, received it on the 30th next day, one day shipping, gotta love that quick turn around for shipped items.I used it that same day, and this one was easier to crimp with. The rubber grips and ease of open close was nicer than my old one.Good product, I recommend to any installer or home electronics user.

These are my last and only one of these I will ever need. I was installing a 15 speaker sound system. Hanging 11 form the ceiling and 4 outdoor speakers. I bought these because one of the techs on the last job I was on had them and let me use them. After installing all the speakers and running 1,083 feet of speaker cable, this was the only tool I needed for cutting, slicing, crimping, and hitting all things necessary to make my job easier. Not only are they easy on the hands but they are tough, rugged, and durable.

But i was slightly scepticle after seeing them they just werent smooth n polished (i usually keep my good tools clean n perty after a dirty job) but its a tool so i disregarded its roughness -i own some selfadjustment wire-strippers-same brand0-love em...SO I TOOK THEESE OUT TO MY TRUCK CRIMPED A LIL 8AWG ACC (CANDENCE 8AWG)WIRE FOR MY LIGHTS N SWITCHES IN MY TRUCK I BARLY GAVE IT A SQEEZE AND I KEPT THINGING IS THIS THING WORKING AND I GRABBED A BRIGHT LIGHT(IT WAS NIGHT TIME) AND THE SLIGHTEST SQEEZE CRIMPED IT LIKE BUTTA....IM SOLD ON IT!!! i would defenatly recomend any tool from this company espesually this for the winn!!!

Great crimper been using Klein for over 10 yrs until now it's much cheaper and it cuts better ,over all better tool great grip very lightweight and very visible under hoods of cars not all black like the Klein brand so I won't have to worry about not seeing it and forgetting it ,I recommend it 100%

I have always dreaded making (ethernet) cables. I've never owned my own crimp tool. I have borrowed other peoples and just dealt with whatever I had to use at the time. I decided it was time for me to research and buy my own tool to make my own cables whenever I like. I'm glad I took the time to research and find this one. I made some cables over the weekend with this tool and these helped me make cables the fastest I've ever made cables and each one of them was perfect. I highly recommend this tool.

These crimpers are probably the best crimpers I've used at the price Point that I love. I think it crimps RJ– 45 and RJ– 11 with ease however my only pet peeve about this particular product is it does not come with several blades to replace the stripper on the unit. I found that I needed a separate tool to strip the wires and used this to crimped them once the blade dulled out. I purchased about three or four more for my other technicians out on the field and highly recommend this product to anyone. I believe in purchasing good products and not the cheapest thing out there and this definitely fits the bill as a good quality product at an excellent price point than anybody can use.

 This tool is everything I could have wanted. I needed to cap off a line I had going into my bedroom that I accidentally cut. I figured this would be easier than buying a new cable and try pull it through a wall. The crimper itself is very well-made. I was surprised at how nice it felt in the hand based off other reviews who called it cheap looking. It was easy to use, stripped the cable perfectly and then took seconds to terminate the line. There was no clicking sound for me, it just worked. The hardest part for me was getting the 8 individual wires into the cap in the right order, which has nothing to do with the tool itself. I found the photos posted by Steven B. to be very helpful as a guide for the correct order the wires should be in.

In terms of actually using the tool, the printed instructions are useless, but I found this video to be extremely helpful.

Works very well. I watched a couple of videos on assembly and it looked like it was best to press the tool together several times when terminating the wires to the connectors. Well, I would say that is bad advice. I tried that method several times, and kept having bad wires. I then tried just pressing the handles of the tool together one time, and had no further problems or issues with use of this tool and all terminated connections worked perfectly.

I have found a lot of bad information on how to terminate your CAT / LAN cables. The best information I located is within the included photos.

You can't go wrong at this price. I work professionally with higher grade tools that cost more but I wanted something for my home and this does everything I want 100%.

You really can't go wrong for the price. Even the cable strip feature managed to not slice the internal wires (which even more expensive strippers have done). That said, this may depend on the cable you use. I used Monoprice 23AWG CAT6 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008I8AHL8/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1). Keep in mind it will still slice through if you're not careful but some simply don't work so to me this was a plus.

The construction is cheap and I have no idea when it'll eventually break but for $13 I really don't care. They're working great right now.

These crimpers will do the job. They give good leverage. I bought these for home use. I have a set of Klein crimpers and I like my Klein crimpers much more. klein and channelock have 2 different spots for crimping. These spots are insulated and non insulated. On the Irwin crimpers it looks like it is just 2 different sizes for noninsulated. It says in the description that these are for insulated as well though. I have used them and I squeezed right through the plastic on my wire connectors, but they still hold well so they do the job. If I had to do it all over, I would probably go with channelock next time.

excellent tool brand and easy to use

Good, quality product

Good tool to have. It's a little loose, but does the job

Item as described. I would recommend this item.

Great pricing, quick shipping, much cheaper than local suppliers. No complaint at all with quality of product. Thank you very much for a good quality product at a reasonable price.

Works magnificently for the price. Solid construction and fairly easy to squeeze. My only complaint is that the early release mechanism (that little knob on the bar between the handles) is a real pain to twist hard enough to release. Maybe a button mechanism would have been better? I don't know; I didn't design it.

Other than that, there were no issues with using it. Now let's see if it lasts more than a few months.

I don't like the ratcheting mechanism, it makes it difficult to put the tool away without taking up so much space. It also makes it difficult to cut a cable in half. If I were to cut a cable in half I would need to reach for my diagonal cutters before proceeding with this tool. The tool works great at stripping the insulation off round Cat5E cable and flat telephone cable. I never had any problems with the cutting blades besides occasionally nicking some of the insulation on the twisted strands in Cat5E. Crimping RJ11 connectors work perfectly but crimping RJ45 connectors is another problem. It does crimp it fine but it damages the locking tab. After crimping the RJ45 connector, I have to pull the tab out a bit or else you won't hear the audible click when inserting the cable into a port. The blades on both sides of the crimper are also very sharp, if I didn't have nails, this would be a pretty dangerous tool to use.

It works fine to crimp cable.

Not really sure how it is supposed to work for stripping cable; that didn't go smoothly and the instructions weren't great. From reading the other reviews I probably should have looked for a separate stripping tool if I wanted to do that easily.

It ratchets closed but then when all the way closed it releases. From another review I believe this is a feature to make sure it's squeezed tightly enough before you let go when crimping (as opposed to being for storage, as the label suggests).

It feels like it's probably the cheap copy of some better tool but it's more than sufficient for occasional use.

Overall I think this is a pretty good tool; the two big factors I like are: build quality and low force (relative to my old tool) required to complete crimp.

The ratcheting mechanism kind of gets in the way a little bit. You can only cut a cable by feeding it through the behind of the ratchet. Since I try to carry as few tools as possible this is kind of a flaw to me, now I'll have to carry linesmen's scissors too. Where as with my old crimp tool, the handles were open so I could wrap the handles around the middle of a long cable and cut it (not necessarily as part of a crimping job).

Also, there are two sets of blades, one for stripping the flat 4 or 6 position cable you usually see in telecom. This set is the two blades on the front of the tool (has the mod plugs labelled and the TRENDnet logo silk screen.
The single blade on the other side is used for cutting. Make sure the part of the cable you want to cut is lined up here with the excess to be cut off fed through the telecom strip blades. That way you only scuff and nick up the part you are going to throw away and not the part you will be using on your patch cable.

I've only used it twice so far, but it's worked both times. It's pretty easy to use, the blades are sharp, the design is good. It didn't cut through the wires inside the cable when using the stripper, just scored along the rubber coating. It cut through easily and cleanly when cutting the cables. The only thing I didn't like and that made it difficult to use was the ratcheting/locking part. After squeezing it to crimp the ends, you have to use your other hand to twist the little release knob to get it to open up again. This was a little difficult to do, especially if you've squeezed it too tightly, as you have to squeeze a little more to release it. Overall, though, I liked it and I'm glad I bought it. It works for my purposes, which is occasional home use.

Cheap copy, good for student use. For real work buy Channellock or greenlee.

Good price but it's more like stamped steal, very thin steal

not what i expected will do job i hope ?We will see

The tool makes okay crimps, which is great. The snips on the end are worthless, couldn't even cut through wet noodles, so I used a bench grinder to grind them off. With the snips ground off they're way easier to get into weird or tight spots. The grips are a bit long, which is great for leverage, but not so great for clearance. These would be good if you also had another smaller set of crimpers, and if the snips on the end were worth a damn.

High quality, well made, does it's job, overpriced to hell. Look at other lower priced options.Would give it a solid 5 stars if it was just 10$, AKA what its WORTH.

These are OK crimpers but I like my Klien crimpers better. The crimping shape and cutouts are not to my liking but the unit does work well. I keep these at home and use my Kliens at work...

I am not a professional, but my job requires me to do the work of a system admin. These are a great deal, they do the job, but If you have a lot of cabling, they get tiring. The action is not smooth and they are a little uncomfortable.

Again, for casual or DIY they are awesome, just dont wire a whole office suite with them.

It will do the job. For the price, it's very good quality. Only issue is that it is designed to cut and strip at the same time. This does not work very well. It often cuts one of the smaller wires or strips the shielding from a few of the smaller wires. I'm sure it's hard to perfect the alignment of the blades so that this doesn't happen (we're talking about factions of an inch), but this must be what separates this product from the more expensive pieces.

That being said, You can work around this flaw once you use the tool a few times.

So far, I have terminated about 30 Cat-6 connectors with this tool. It works, but I wouldn't recommend it for a professional.

The blade on the stripper portion broke after 10-12 uses. I was able to unscrew it and use the part that didn't break to finish the job.

One thing I don't like is that as you crimp the connector, the tool presses near the base of the retention tab on the RJ-45 connector, so the tab gets folded flat. After each crimp, I had to carefully bend the tab back. The was a balance of not breaking it, but having it stick out enough to hold the connector in a port.

This crimp tool is OK. Blades are sharp and work well for cutting and stripping. The two issue I have is that it bends the clips on male ends I have so that they do not stay in place. This may be an issue with the ends, and not the tool, but I have to be very careful when crimping to not bend them. I also have difficulty getting the tool to lock closed. The locking mechanism in the middle is a little difficult to figure out. Overall, it is a pretty solid tool for the price, but these minor annoyances (which may not be completely the tools fault) knock it down to only OK for me.

This tool worked perfectly to cut and crimp the ends of my Ethernet cables but the stripping part to cut off the outer shield of the cable was oddly placed. It was really tricky to place it and hold it steady with the cutting blade so close and my hands on the handle blocking part of my view. I couldn't see what I was doing very well because the stripping blade was placed so close to the handle. I think I would prefer separate stripping and crimping tools if I were to need to terminate many more cables.

Bought on reputation( irwin). first time ever, used cutter edge to cut "plastic strap", tip broke off. previous review had a good idea, grind down cutters. not going to bother returning.

They do not have a crimp spot for insulated terminals only for in insulated. The handle is nice it's the only reason for 2 stars the crimper and cutter part is just forged not ground or machined about even with harbor freight quality

I LOVE Vise-Grip's wire strippers, and their needle nose pliers are on point, but these have been a real disappointment. My first pair broke the first day, but I suspect that was simply a manufacturing defect. My replacement pair came quickly and seemed to be what I needed, but over the course of a couple of months it's become apparent that these just don't compete with some of the more expensive brands. The jaws have slowly become loose which makes cutting even 14 AWG wire a chore, as the cutting jaw starts to slip off the other jaw. Also, it would have been super nice to have a slot for insulated crimps.Good: The rubber handles are very comfortable to hold, and they look great next to my other VG tools.Bad: They seem to be made of the wrong kind of material

There good for the price but a little stiff

Poor Chinese product. Not what I would expect from Irwin.

Well after I purchased these I read other reviews and they were rite. They are a poor quality the grooves do not line up not sure if alignment will matter but it doesn't look good and the shipping wasn't good either 10 days to get here and I could have went to the home depot or lowes and not paid the shipping and I could have seen the poor quality before purchase.

I used these to crimp probably 50 rj45 plugs then it stopped pressing the 6th contact. So now I have to crimp using my cheaper crimpers and I use these just to cut off the ends.

Using the EZ-Crimp terminals are a pain with this crimper, I make it work most of the time but occasionally I make a solid connection.

I received a broken one it seems. The thing won't stay closed. Tried to get replacement but I was a few days outside the return period. So be sure to open yours and make sure all is well--AS SOON AS YOU GET IT!!!!!!!

l got this when I bought a bunch of bulk cable. Amazon put it into one of their deals where I got a discount buying this with the cable. I figured that I would need to put some ends on some of the cables. I was very disappointed to find that the stripping part of this tool is for flat cables only, of course the cable it was bundled with was round cable. It is well built, and I will likely use it in the future so I'll keep it.

This tool was bundled by Amazon with the direct bury cat5e cable. This tool will probably work fine with a flat cable, but doesn't work good at all with the round direct bury cable. The crimping part didn't crimp down far enough to hold all the wires of the round cable in the RJ45 connector. Here again, it might crimp down and hold a flat cable just fine, but not the round cable. I think this might be a bundling error. I would not recommend this tool if you're using cat5e direct bury cable.

I had this for about a week before the stupid thing broke. I was cutting like some 18 awg wire and it broke a big piece of the cutting edge. Hoping for some type of warranty.

Very bad materials used to make product one side of the pin in the middle sheared off it was very thin.sending back

Poor quality

The crimpers sucks.. It went dull after a few use..

I purchased this in March 2016 when I started a new job as a professional AV tech so I've been using it over a year. We regularly install Cat6 and Cat5e keystones residentially and commercially. If you're in the professional side of things, get a Klein or Ideal. If you need this for a few punch downs around your house, it will suffice. Just keep in mind the spring is inconsistent and not near as efficient as the Ideal and Klein models as I have tested from other co-workers.

Waste of money and most important time to find out how bad are they.

I have this crimper for the last 5 years and used it off and on - I would say I have crimped about 20-30 CAT5 ends which were perfect. Therafter, the crimper seem to inadequately make a proper connection with the wires. I thought it was the ends but I have used the same ends with another crimper and they were perfect. I cannot figure out what is wrong with the crimper as it is mechanically and physically sound. It has become a real time waster as after I spent all the time align the wires and finally crimp the ends they are useless. Sorry I wasted my money on this.

the blades did not work for stripping and cutting round CAT 5 cable (tried 2 of this tools)..

I used this crimp tool as well as another one that is five time more expensive than this one. There were many crimping issues when I used this tool. If you are a professional, you probably have learnt your lesson a long time back. For those adventurous folks wiring up their own homes, please do yourself a favor and buy a more professional grade tool. The time and effort saved will definitely be worth it.

This tool has all the things a professional tool should have. However, stripping the cable is a lot more difficult with this one. There is a good chance you'll nick the inside wires if your cat 5e cable is slightly thinner. Other people might have had better success with this tool, but unfortunately bad crimps and the extra labor involved is just not worth the apparent savings when investing in this tool.