When I worked at Intel, we used to have a lot of cables with the smaller pins. We used a high speed crimper. It still required a skilled operator. If the pin was not set at just the right location the crimper would push the edge of the pins crimp down against the wire, rather than squeezing the crimp at the center. Th would usually shear most of the strands of the wire. The few that were lefts would slide out. The other was if the insulation got into the crimp, there wasn't enough room for the wire and insulation. This would rip the wire apart. We used to use a pull tester that had to be manually setup. I often wondered if it might be faster to just use a manual crimper as the extra step of the pull test, cost about as much time as a manual crimp.
If I have a crimper, I also would prefer to use one but for hobby use I find it hard to justify the cost. If I was in production I would clearly use a crimping tool.
It is just if you have a small project, sometimes soldering is not a bad option.
Dwight
