Thread: Soldering tips

Hi,
I made a handy dandy landy solder holder to do mine.



A block of wood with a hole in it to hold the pin, a piece of angle Al cut in vertically, a peg to hold the wire and a clamp to stop the whole caboodle falling over.

Saves burning fingers.

cheers

The trick to sucessfully solder is to have the correct "FLUX", there are different fluxes for different metals, some coils of solder come with flux in their centre, I prefer to use "Yorkshire" paste flux as well as resin core flux on larger dia. wires, hope this helps, Regards Frank.

Any auto electrician will have a big crimper and should do it for 10 or 20 bucks , or nix if you have used him before to recharge the air or whatever.

This IMHO would be the safest, and avoid the "dry solder joint" issue that can cause very hard to find problems.
Regards Philip A

I friend of mine used to work in the technical dept of Tyco which is a big manufacturer of connectors around the world. His take on this question was that their research showed that a properly crimped connection using a connector that was designed for it was better than soldering. When enough pressure was applied to the crimp (a proper crimp!) there was zero atoms of oxygen between the wire and the connector. Also they found that it took slightly more force to take the connection apart than it did to put it together, showing there was some sort of molecular bonding occuring

So for what is is worth that it what they said !!

Hi Mark and you have no idea what a can of worms you have opened.

I crimp because I have so many termination to do, BUT, for novices, if you don’t have the correct crimping tool, soldering is by far the best way to go.

If you get a crimp done wrong, cut the terminal off and get a new one and this is not always that convenient if you don’t have spares.

If you stuff a solder join, heat, remove and start again.

As to which is better, soldering or crimping?

The reality is that there is little difference between them.

In laboratory tests, soldered joints were found to be the stronger, BUT, the difference was so insignificant that it was irrelevant.

There is also a lot B/S about soldered joints being more likely to fatigue, especially if the solder wicks up the cable from the joint.

This is nothing but as above, total B/S.

The reason cables fatigue is because they are not secured properly when they are installed and both soldered and crimped joints will fatigue if the cable can flex too much.

BTW Mark, if I do some soldering, I use an 80w electric iron for anything up to 6B&S or 16mm2

Yes - a big can of worms DriveSafe - but all very interesting reading! And I now don't feel like quite such a gumbie for having failed in my attempt to make the repair with a 40 watt wand on the grass in a caravan park!!!

Thanks all for the great advice and tips.

Mark.

I always crimp. However, if moisture is going to be a problem, I then seal the crimp with a layer of resin core done with a 100W iron then heat shrink it.

Using Capitals, the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse or helping your uncle jack off a horse...

I managed to get my busted anderson plug sorted by a pro in Kununurra and then, a couple of days later, had it ripped off again on the Duncan Rd to Halls Creek (shouldn't have put that dead roo through the centre of the wheels methinks)!

Nothing like a second chance to put my new knowledge to the test. I bought myself a 80watt iron and tinning the wires was easy. I then crimped the wires into the anderson pins and - hey presto - managed to solder them in as well.

WOOHOO!

Thanks again for the tips!