Battery Powered Thermal Wire Stripper – Cool Tools

General Purpose Tools

Battery Powered Thermal Wire Stripper

No nick wire-stripper

Here is a great tool that few outside of professional wire workers seem to know about. The thermal wire stripper is easy to use and has enough benefits that I have kept one in my wiring bag for the last 20 years.

What is a thermal wire stripper? It is a hand-held wire stripper with an electrically heated inverse “V” blade. To use, position the wire and push the button. The thin blade tip heats up and melts the insulation in about a second at which point the wire is pulled out leaving the insulation behind. And the best part? No damage to the metal conductor. I am good with lineman’s scissors and diagonal cutters but I still leave a nick once in a while when using these tools. Not so with the thermal stripper!

I have had good luck with both solid and stranded wire mostly 20-24 gauge using Patco’s PTS-20 model ($134). This is the battery model (the only battery powered thermal wire stripper that I have ever seen). The plug-in version works just as well but I got tired of dragging a cord around. The battery is a D-cell sized Ni-MH and will last me 2-3 hours when I am installing low-voltage wiring. They indicate “1,500 strips per charge”. Maybe I hold the button down longer than necessary or something but I don’t think that I am getting that kind of life out of a charge. I am not sure of the recharge time as I usually plug it in and leave it for a few hours or overnight. Regardless of the run-time specifics, I find it a great aid when working with wires.

Other models handle 14-gauge and coax; I have not tried them but I imagine that they work just as well. The price seemed steep to me, but the benefits are enough that I recommend one for anyone doing more than occasional wiring.

-- Darrow Cole 03/1/19

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