There is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,184,950 a method of controlling the crimp height of crimped connections each produced by the application of a compressive crimping force to a crimping barrel of a respective electrical terminal, the method comprising the steps of coarsely adjusting the shut height of crimping tooling for crimping said barrels to electrical leads under said compressive force, to a theoretical value corresponding to an optimum crimp height for the crimped connections.
The said shut height is adjusted stepwise by means of a rotary disc having projections thereon each of a different height for selective intersection between an applicator ram carrying upper elements of the crimping tooling and a press ram for driving the applicator ram towards and away from lower crimping tooling. Each projection corresponds to the theoretical optimum crimp height for a particular terminal and lead size combination. These theoretical crimp heights are derived by testing the integrity of crimped connections produced by means of tooling, terminals and leads, which are in optimum condition. Thus in the event of tooling wear for example or minor variations in terminal or lead size, the crimped connections produced may be imperfect even if the disc be adjusted to its correct angular position for the terminal and lead combination to be used.