Nice and tight, that works. Solder/shrink wrap. The key to your example was in keeping the amount you stripped to a minimum, and a nice tight swirl.
Yes, I do the same thing with spade luge/eye connections: I remove the plastic, crimp, solder (very lightly! just a touch! you do not want to get the solder to wick up into the wire, because this will make a stiff section that could fatigue), and shrink wrap. What's a marrette?
I've done electrical work and electronics on just about everything except airplanes and tied wires together just about every way.For all around use I'd rather have **** conectors crimped with a Sta-Kon crimper than anything.The problem with connectors is most crimpers ain't worth a damn,just mashing them flat is not reliable.
Where can you get good solder anymore? The last I got to work on my circuit board in my stereo was junk. I still have an old tube of fine wound lead, but I hate to use it. This last tube I got was really acidic. I can get a Range Master Treble Boost cheap that needs work, but I don't trust the solder I have to fix a tone pot much less a vintage pedal for my amplifier. I have a Sta-Kon crimper myself. I just discard the plastic and shrink over it. It would be easy to solder after crimping, but this solder I have seen around is bad.
I think you can still find decent 60/40 rosin core solder. I am still working off solder I bought years and years ago, though. I tend to buy in bulk.
Thanks, I'll check further. I dont know what this **** was(it was supposed to be 60/40), I picked it up at Radio Shack. Their stuff has really gone down hill. I did a touch on a circuit board, laid perfectly, but then came back in a couple of days and it looked like cankered br***. The shielding smelled funny too when it was laying in, like it was dissolving off the rosin. I cleaned it with some ammonia, but theres a hiss in the sound if you kick off the EQ and run off the board which is what I soldered. I liked that old amp. I cant see to fix it, but my son can if I can get him some solder and as long as I haven't hurt the mids.
A few years ago I was Engineering Manager for a Telecom company, we were doing electronic refurb **** mainly cell phones and PDA's the OEM's all started going to lead free solder. They forced us into the lead free. About a year later I noticed that all the solder on the shelves at the local electronic stores had lead free labels. Lead free solder ****s, it takes a complete different heat profile than the old solder. We had some great techs that go beat into submission trying to repair boards with lead free. I managed to snag a few big rolls of the leaded stuff, but I am down to my last roll. Lead is a great stabilizer for all kinds of things, but the side effects of working with it on a daily basis is little rough. If you see any electric solder that has lead buy it up! Johnboy
Good tech , I always try to soldier my wires , I like the little tool you came up with as a third hand to hold the wires , will build one tomorrow,,,,thanks ,,,,,
There are plenty of crimp connections in flight equipment. Mainly they are used within connectors to crimp contacts onto wires which are inserted into the connectors. I see lots of crimp lugs used as well. Every crimp tool is calibrated on a periodic basis and has a specific set of instructions that tell you how to do it. However, there are a limited number of crimp "splices" used and very specific to an application. First of all, splices are used for repair work only. The proper word for joining two wires together is a "transition", used for going from one gage of wire to another. 99.9% of flight transitions are solder based. The old lap solder method is rarely used and solder sleeves are the weapon of choice. Raychem makes a great variety of solder sleeves and are qualified to mil specs. Look up NAS1744 and M83519/1 and M83519/2 for examples. NASA work is almost always soldered. There are rare exceptions and it has to have extensive "qual testing" to back it up for reliablilty reasons. On rods, just about anything will work if you use a little common sense. Soldered joints have to be free of flux. Use strain relief methods so the wires are not under tension or allowed to vibrate or rub up against anything abrasive. Crimp connections are fine provided there is strain relief and I like to sleeve them with shrink sleeving. Bob
Very well written tech. Thanks for that! I like the small tool made with stiff wire and 2 roach clips..... have to make me some of those! I do a lot of wiring and and never thought of that tool before. One thing I do when I have to use a few crimp ****-splices in a loom (like when GM updates their EFI fuel pump connector and you have to replace it) is to stagger the joints made so that you don't have all the ****-splices next to each other. Makes for a nicer, smaller diameter repair. I don't solder these since I'm right near a dropped fuel tank! One more note: I solder/shrink as many joints as I can when wiring a car from scratch. If vibration kills the joints, you need suspension repairs! There is no car that rides that rough. Oh yeah, I never never never swap wire colors on either side of a splice, and always draw up neat diagrams for the owner.
Nice tech. I'm building hot rods not lunar space modules. The factories have been soldering wire connections in cars since the beginnings. What holds the wires in generators for the last 85 years? Nothing is fool proof but You will have less problems if you follow this tech in lieu of the crimped solderless connectors. IMHO I bought one of those cheap Chinese import flexible arm jigs that all the import tool vendors have...with the magnifying gl*** for these old eyes.
you can still get it at lots of places, Nappa has really good electrical solder. They tried to get rid of the leaded solder but the replacment wasn't worth a dam. try googling mouser electronics,they are a good source. I didn't see where you are but you may not be able to get it in Cali, if you are there might have to get someone to slip you some in the mail.
For RC hobby, landing gear wires, motor mounts, structural stuff. Silver melts at about 900 F. is for structural repair as is br***. Lead/solder is plenty adequate for electrical wiring, melts at less than 300 F.
in the 60's i worked for a computer manufacture and they had a cl*** on soldering. after stripping the wires we would use flux in a liquid form and tin both wires before soldering them together. using the flux first would allow quick and easy joining of wires with out cold solder joints. it was usually in bottles about the size of nail polish with a small brush. I haven't seen that around in a while either.
Crimp nuts are good. Life is good. All are acceptable for electrical wiring, a matter of choice. As stated before, even in Aircraft wiring, (aside brfom mini-circuits, boards, etc. and integrated exectronics where conductivity, micro amps, etc), crimp is the bench-mark and my preference on ordinary automobile wiring. My problem with solder is it precipitates down the wire strands and makes the joint rigid. Any flexing tends to fracture, which is not the case with crimp.
I used to do everything with solder. Then I bought a new wiring harness for my car that uses Packard style terminals... whole new world there. I bought several crimpers for the Packard terminals and started using them. I'm a crimp guy now too. A properly executed Parckard crimp is really amazing. I can't pull them apart with my bare hands.
Good for jewelry and other stuff like that, but I would think it needs too much heat for electrical work (will burn insulation) and the flux is probably too aggressive.
That's a really important point (about staggering the splices). You'd be surprised at how often someone doesn't think to do that.
Nice thread, but like EVERY electrical post it is full of second opinions and corrections. For this reason I'll never understand elictricity and sell all my projects befor any wire is needed.
Wire nuts are the most reliable but do leave that bulge. I use them and try and keep them out of eyesight.
oatey makes a silver bearing solder that is supposed to melt as easy as regular rosin core solder,they say you can use any quality flux. They carry it in the welding section at Home Depot. it's a little pricey but it must be some special alloy. I use some silver solder, but i use it for making special plumbing adaptors for my car. The regular kind,you need a regular torch or maby a map gas oxygen torch to melt it, I know it was used factory to solder all the high pressure lines in my power steering system on my honda. The only thing I would use silver solder for in automotive is if you have a high end audio system and you want the lowest resistance connections possible.
My Dad and one of my Uncles were Ma-Bell employees before WWII in L.A. and taught me the Western Union method of splicing wires. This was back in the '60s and before shrink tubing. I have worked as a bench tech on very expensive professional recording equipment and have wired all my cars including my g***er in the '60s and my recent '32 roadster. I have never used a crimp connector and have soldered every connection. All wires were tied or bundled to eliminate any pulling or tension. The method described by plym49 is very sound advice, but you need to understand temperature and soldering procedures. I am speaking from my own personal experience of never having a splice or connection failure. But there are certainly many methods of connecting wires and everyone of us will use what works from our own experience. The FOGGER
You are right about that: wiring, welding, wrenching - it is a like a religion and everyone has their own preferences. I was taught the western union splice as a youngster and stayed with it until a few years ago when someone showed me the interwoven strands approach I presented in this thread. It turns out that for most automotive and motorcyle wiring the interwoven is adequate and it requires less strip and is smoother under the shrinkwrap. With the western union splice, if you are not careful the tip of a strand can poke thru the shrink wrap. You are also correct about heat control. A little goes a long way. Someone mentioned soldered splices where the solder wicks up the wires, making them stiff and liable to fatigue. If the solder is wicking up past the splice then you used too much heat for too long and too much solder. It's like a tack weld on sheet metal, just a little dab'll do ya. Thanks for your comments.
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