A terminal crimping machine includes a termination tool having crimp tooling defining a crimping zone that receives the terminal and the wire. The crimp tooling is actuated during a crimp stroke to crimp the terminal to the wire. The terminal crimping machine includes a wire clamp holding the wire near the crimping zone. The wire clamp releases the wire prior to completion of the crimp to allow extrusion of the wire during the crimping process. Optionally, the wire clamp may release the wire prior to bottom dead center of the crimp stroke. The wire clamp may release the wire after the terminal partially retains the wire.

A cable includes an electric line having a plurality of cores with contacts being attached to ends of the cores. A plug connector has a contact carrier which accommodates the contacts in such a manner that the contacts are disposed in the contact carrier with a directional component that is oriented in parallel to a first direction. A collar is integrally formed on the contact carrier. The collar fixes the electrical line in position and bends the cores such that the cores have a directional component that is oriented in parallel to a second direction. The first direction is orthogonal to the second direction.

A method of manufacturing a wire with terminal includes: a) crimping a core wire crimping portion of a terminal onto an exposed core wire extending from an insulating sheathing member at an end portion of a wire; b) crimping a sheath crimping portion of the terminal onto the insulating sheathing member; and c) designating at least one of a first trough-shaped combination portion, which links a terminal connection portion of the terminal and the core wire crimping portion, and a second trough-shaped combination portion, which links the core wire crimping portion and the sheath crimping portion, as a target combination portion and deforming the upright tabs of the target combination portion into an arc shape bulging outward.

A terminal crimping system for a crimping machine includes an anvil, a movable ram, an image acquisition device, and a display device. The anvil is located in a crimping zone and configured to receive a terminal thereon. The terminal has a wire crimp barrel configured to receive a wire therein. The ram has crimp tooling configured to crimp the wire crimp barrel of the terminal to the wire during a crimp stroke of the ram. The image acquisition device is configured to be mounted on the crimping machine above the crimping zone. The image acquisition device is positioned to acquire an image of the wire within the wire crimp barrel of the terminal in the crimping zone. The display device is configured to display the image.