thank you for the feedback about the open barrel crimps. I actually was wondering about those dies... it seems most people seem to think the only way to get a good crimp is with the 4 radially indenting dies.
On the weatherpack vs deutsch... aside from being easier to work with, are they actually better connectors, as in more watertight? I know they claim ip67. In my use, I probably won't be needed to disassemble-reassemble much. Mostly I would like them for adding accessories, such as more lights on my my tractor or truck etc. In the past I've used spade or bullet connectors for things that I want removable but it is far from ideal. Also the higher current capabilities from the dtp line would be appealing for some things.
The actual Deutsch 4 pin (actually 8 pin) radial crimpers are nice (and not as expensive as they used to be). As mentioned above, I have not tested the square ones from Pressmaster to see how well they work/dont work on the round pins. The best way I've found to use the open connectors was a generic 5 station (5 different sizes) crimping tool that has the 'm' top die to wrap the ears around. This requires at least 4 crimps - 2 for the wire and 2 for the insulation strain relief. We just cut off the insulation crimp from the open connectors since the turned connectors don't have one anyway so that saves 2 steps. We even had the pistol looking crimp tools from Deutsch for the open connectors and they still sucked.
The deutsch connectors are decidedly better in extreme situations. If you read the IP specs, just because it says IP67 does not mean that they're all the same. There is always the statement of "unless otherwise agreed upon" in there for the test procedure. The harsh submersion test is one of the most difficult to pass - go from submerged in boiling water to a dunk in soapy, salty ice water - Repeat, then disassemble and look for any signs of water ingress. The variables here are many - some do 0.5 meters deep in room temp water, some do 3 meters deep in ice water, some do 1 cycle, others do 100 cycles, some do 125C in air instead of boiling water, etc. Without the actual test report/procedure you don't really know what was "otherwise agreed upon". In testing, the Deutsch outperformed all the others in the most extreme environments either by passing or less severe failures.
For most "real" applications on a machine, trailer, etc, the weatherpack/metripack are more than good enough. We used Deutsch primarily because all the components we were testing used Deutsch so we had a wall of DT, DTM and DTP connectors, wedgelocks, pins both male and female from 2-12 position so we could make up whatever we needed. That 4'x6' wall was worth about $20k when all populated.
