Don't Miss the SEMA and AAPEX Shows This Year

Trade shows are a great way to show people what your company can offer and to find out what others can offer you. Coming up at the beginning of November, Las Vegas will be home to two of the largest automotive-based shows, AAPEX and SEMA, bringing in the second largest group of attendees to Las Vegas.

The SEMA show runs November 4 through November 7 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. This is a great place to find specialty automotive products, and it draws a large crowd. Last year’s numbers were greater than 60,000. From the exhibition floor to product demonstrations to educational seminars to celebrity appearances, this show is a great way to get your products out there, find products you need, and just network in general.

The AAPEX show runs November 3 through November 6 at the Sands Expo.  Educational conference sessions run the 3^rd through the 6^th, and the exhibit hall is open the 4^th through the 6^th.  With more than 39,000 buyers and 130,000 professionals set to attend, this is a great place to come to help grow your business. In addition to the conferences, webinars, and exhibit floor, be sure to check out the celebrity appearances and press conferences.

Quick Cable will be exhibiting again at AAPEX, so come visit us upstairs in the Tool & Equipment Section, booth #952. We hope to see you there!

Between the two shows, Las Vegas is sure to have what you are looking for this November. It’s not too late to register. Come, learn, look, and find what you need to help your business continue to grow. We hope to see you there!

The Portable Power Pack You Need

Portable power packs are handy tools. Quick Cable sells power packs to cover just about every type of vehicle, from cars to light trucks to semis and tractors. We even offer some with aero connections. Whatever your power pack need, Quick Cable has you covered.

With 100% copper cables, ergonomic design and materials, our Rescue Portable Power Packs are a great choice. They offer an array of different features, so you can choose the best option to fit what you want. Do you want something lightweight to jumpstart your car? Our iStart model is lightweight and easy to use. Perhaps you want something with a little more power, something that warns you about reverse polarity and comes equipped with LED clamp lights and a place to store a few tools. Our new Rescue 1000 model gives you that. Do you need enough power to start construction equipment and extra long cables and a voltmeter? You can look at our wheeled Rescue 5000 and 6000 models for those.

Engineered better. Built better. That’s our Rescue Portable Power Packs motto. Our high quality power packs are designed to meet your needs and to deliver top performance. Whatever you are looking for, Quick Cable has you covered.

Our New Universal Crimping Dies

It’s a big deal when we change what we’re doing across the board with crimping dies for our manual and pneumatic cable crimpers. After all, we've been selling the same dies for years, so what’s up?

There are a lot more cable types now than there used to be. And the cable manufacturers are squeezing the specs right down to the minimum in a lot of cases because copper can be a volatile commodity—its price can fluctuate wildly. So cable wire diameter is not as consistent as it used to be and that makes cable crimping more of a challenge.

The barrel diameter of a terminal has to be large enough to accept cable at the maximum diameter for a particular gauge size, but as that cable size varies among types and manufacturers, the same crimping force doesn't produce the same clamping force, and the risk is the cable can pull out of the terminal.

To help make sure that you can get quality crimps on all terminals and cable types, our engineering team developed a new series of crimping dies that have enough setting possibilities to handle virtually any crimping challenge you’re likely to come across.

Our universal die set consists of two A dies and two B dies, so you can match A and A, A and B or B and B to get 78 possible crimp settings. That allows us to create specs for cast copper, MagnaLug, MAX lug and even contacts for SB housings using the same set of dies.

An obvious benefit is you don’t need a dedicated MAX lug crimper any more.

Along with the new universal dies comes a new quick-change system for manual crimpers and pneumatic crimpers to make it much easier to change die sets—you don’t need special tools, and it just takes seconds.

Best of all, the universal dies and quick change pins for manual crimpers are an easy retrofit to existing crimpers.

It's Not Just Battery Cable Any More

Remember the good old days when you had a simple choice between battery cable and welding cable? Battery cable was the stiffer stuff that had the hard plastic PVC jacket that was resistant to solvents and abrasion. Welding cable had that rubber insulation and was fine wire so it really flexed well in cold weather. Battery cable was great for under the hood and welding cable made great booster cables.

Well now there are more kinds of battery cable and you have choices to make.

The first step was marine battery cable. It is a fine stranded cable similar to welding cable, and like welding cable is rated to 600V while basic battery cable is only rated to 60V. Most importantly, the copper strands are tin plated for added corrosion resistance in marine environments.

In the latest Quick Cable catalog, there are two new battery cable choices: SGX High Temperature Rated Battery Cable and Fine Stranded Battery Cable that performs well at low temperatures. Both are fine stranded cables rated to 600V.

The insulator on SGX cable is a polyolefin and it is designed for underhood temperatures up to 257°.

The insulator on Fine Stranded Battery Cable is SGT thermoplastic rubber; the cable is very flexible like welding cable but more resistant to solvents and abrasion. It would be a good choice for making up booster cables—it stays flexible to -50°C.

Things may not be as simple as they used to be, but you have more choices for the right cable in any environment.

Jump Packs in Summer?

Well, it looks like spring is finally making an appearance after a long, cold, hard winter. 

Time to put away those booster cables and portable power packs, right? Not so fast!

Conventional wisdom might tell you that jump starting is a winter sport, and most of the time it actually is, but Rescue Portable Power Packs are more than everyday jump starting tools.

Of course, as you walk out to the garden shed to start that riding mower for its first cut, you might find it handy to have a Rescue 900 in hand.

Or better yet, a Rescue 950 with a built-in compressor that can air up those tires after a long cold spell.

Folks tell us the Rescue 1060 with the compressor and the 120V power inverter is the perfect thing to bring along on camping trips. You can make short work of air mattresses, beach balls, etc. and you can charge your cell phones, tablets and even run a TV if you have to for the kids.

Desert racers love the 1060 because they can jump their ATV’s and they can lower their tire pressure for sand running and bring them back up for street use.

Even our economical iStart is a great camping companion with its flashlight, starting cables and power outlet.

So even though summer is on its way, don’t pull those portable power packs off the shelf. Maybe you just need a new sign to guide your customers!

Train the Delivery Drivers

If your business is battery retail, then this blog is for you.

Your delivery driver could be a sales person. All you have to do is to teach him (or her) to ask a simple question when they drop off or pick up batteries:

“What are you doing about battery accessories?”

Battery installers have to get their accessories somewhere. Why not from you? 

If they are buying batteries, they need replacement cables and connectors. They need shrink tube. They need terminal protectors, split loom, battery cleaner and protector spray, nitrile gloves—actually, just pick up a Quick Cable catalog and you’ll see what they need.

We know a lot of battery distributors who do 10% or more of their annual battery volume in accessories. That can be a pretty significant number, and the margin potential can’t be ignored.

Your delivery driver has a relationship that your counter people may not have—knowing the people at the other end well—and not actually being a sales person. So the driver has an advantage that can uncover opportunities.

Teach your drivers to ask questions, and everyone on your staff can help grow the business.

Professional Grade, Professional Selection

Often we hear people talking about professional grade products and professional selection or range. But what does that really mean?

To us at Quick Cable it means having the right product for the right application. Period.

Consider the ordinary battery clamp style terminal. It fits over a battery post; has a bolt and a nut to secure it tightly. What does a professional selection of battery clamp terminals look like?

We make them in copper die cast material, straight terminals, left and right elbows, flags, with accessory take-offs, with add-on connector studs and with locking stud tabs. Then we make them as Fusion connectors with solder and flux built in so you can solder them fast—in straight, elbow and flag styles. 

And then we make the compression connectors that you can fit to a cable with a screwdriver and a wrench, in straight, elbow and flag. And after that we have the lead and brass automotive terminals, often sold on cards, and we have the lead-free OEM style terminals like what you see on new vehicles. AND we have marine terminals, military terminals, terminals with quick disconnects, terminals with three-way clamps, and adaptor terminals of several types.

All together we have 247 terminals that are just battery clamps, including all the gauges and styles.

If you’re going to call your product line professional, you better have the solutions that professionals need.

We do. And we are.