About Grounded Pliers
I frequently get asked whether my grounded pliers and hemostats are compatible with XYZ brand PJ welders. The answer is always YES. All PJ welders accept the standard 4mm banana plug, which is also used by all grounded pliers on the open market today. Therefore, any PJ grounded pliers will work with any brand of PJ welder. While there are notable differences in the quality of grounded pliers, they will all fit all PJ welders.
Works With ALL Permanent Jewelry Welders:
- Zapp, mPulse, PJ (Sunstone - Orion)
- PUK
- Everarc (Everlinx)
- Unbranded (Sold on Amazon)
- Helix (Pepetools)
- Sparkle
- Jupiter (re-branded Sparkle)
- Charmed (re-branded Sparkle)
- Ding Xing
- Linked
Did you know that the banana plug is over 99 years old? Every Permanent Jewelry welder I’ve seen uses a male banana plug for the grounding probe, whether it's an alligator clip or grounded pliers. I’ve been using them for over 50 years, as they are commonly employed for test leads with electronic test instruments. My background is in electronics, and I was playing with and fixing electronics long before I went to college for it.
The banana plug we use is a 4mm banana plug, sometimes referred to as a "4mm connector." Although there is a 2mm banana plug, it is rare, and I have never used one in my 50+ years in electronics. To my knowledge, all Permanent Jewelry welders use the 4mm banana plug.
Micro-Tools offers the BEST grounded pliers available today, and we guarantee it.
All grounded pliers by Micro-Tools now include a true built-in strain relief. Although less than 3% of users break the grounding wire on their grounded pliers, I found this number unacceptable. I've been working hard to educate the community on proper care for grounded pliers, but not everyone has been reached.
When I first started making grounded pliers, I took pride in providing the cleanest grounding wire installations, which remains my preferred method. However, due to issues with broken grounding wires, we upgraded from 18-gauge to 16-gauge wire to address the problem. We then introduced a rigid strain relief (extended heat shrink), which reduced some of the breakages, but not enough.
This led me to decide to invest extra time and resources into installing a true strain relief. Breaking the grounding wire is a common issue for all manufacturers of grounded pliers. When I say "break," I mean the internal metal part of the wire, which typically isn’t visible but is separated internally.
Watch this video for some care tips for grounded pliers.