solder vs crimp

[MikeW]

I took the Boeing pre-employment training for aircraft electrician in '07. They are still using lacing in high vibration and un-pressurized areas. I was so impressed with the Panduit tie wrap gun that I had to spend the money and get one for myself though

[Larwyn]

The most time consuming and painful part of wiring, to me, when I was in the Air Force was bundling the harness with lacing twine. By the time you finished lacing up the cables in the back of a piece of equipment your fingers were all raw and covered with all the adhesive tape out of the first aid kit. These days it's just a bunch of plastic wire ties tightened and sniped with a ty-wrap gun and your done. The new way does not look as good till the door is closed, then they look just the same................

We used "waxie tie cord" at Beech. I wonder if that was the same stuff you used in the Air Force? I was pretty good at it, too! I still remember how to do it. That stuff lasts forever! Zip ties deteriorate with age, sometimes as little as a year![/quote]

The lacing twine we used was a brown waxed cord. We were told that there was rat poison in the wax for rodent control. Not sure whether that was true or not. We used various knots and lock stitches depending on who did the training.

Mike, I got myself one of those Panduit ty-wrap guns too, had it long enough that I have worn the chrome off the grip and lost the rubber cover from the trigger but it still works.

[jimqpublic]

For the record,

Ignore everything I said if it conflicts with the other posters. A week-long NASA soldering school? That's hardcore!

[Juneaudave]

For the record,

Ignore everything I said if it conflicts with the other posters. A week-long NASA soldering school? That's hardcore!

I know what you mean...twisting a couple wires together and wrapping with black tape just ain't going to cut it with this crowd!!!

[MikeW]

One of the greatest things about the net is the ability to network with and learn from people with these kinds of skills!

[Cliffmeister2000]

For the record,

Ignore everything I said if it conflicts with the other posters. A week-long NASA soldering school? That's hardcore!

That was 32 years ago. Back when people had to be careful they didn't get cigarette ashes on their work!

Seriously, though, they cut our joints (solder joints, that is) open to look for complete wetting, no bubbles, etc. And they pulled the joints apart to see how strong they were, and excessive solder, or shrinking of the wire coating from excessive soldering heat, etc, were no-nos. I hear they x-ray them nowadays.

[DIY-Stu]

I've been putting an engine in a car that doesn't belong there. The engine was in a FWD platform and now being placed in as mid engine. Wires on one side are too long and the ones on the other are too short. I'm having to touch every wire in the OBD-II engine harness. I choose to solder everything. Over the years of doing this I have gotten quite good at it and have even put solder connections head to head with multiple types of crimp connections to be abused for failure tests. Only failures I've had on the cars I've done are when the solder joints are placed in a bend of the harness then subjected to vibration. the break is from the unsoldered wires breaking at the edge of the joint. I have since started using glue filled tubing that firms up quite a lot keeping the joints more rigid past the solder area. Since then all joints are in straighter areas to also combat vibration fatigue in a bend. I am a firm believer in solder. I use silver solder as it seems to work the best. Some what expensive but best flow, best coverage, best build, best strength and higher temp. Any time I can I take a long wire to a new connector. The connection is lightly crimped to keep from stressing the wire then soldered for the actual strength and low resistance connection. In my field if a crimp is used and the resistance is increased then issues will occur causing issues with the engine. A joint failure could be catastrophic to the engines.

My 2¢

[Dale M.]

38 years of doing wire forms with waxed rayon "12 cord" (12 stands of string to make up the "twine" ) in telecommunications. It makes a beautify finished product if done properly, and in a lot of applications zip ties (plastic wire ties) were not allowed....

Nothing wrong with soldered connections, in fact I do both depending on where connection is and if you ever want to access it and change it.... Most problem I see is a many people do not know how to do either properly.... In telecommunications field we had a very specific set of rules on dies to crimp wire/cable and wire and cable had to go into connector to a specific depth and there could be none or very little "shiner" between insulation and end of crimp on terminal... Also had to be sure there was application of a corrosion preventive compound (dielectric grease) in connection....

Where a lot of uneducated people (in soldering and crimping techniques) get into trouble is the do not understand each process very well....

In all the processes of connection first part is a good mechanical connection with proper crimping tools and protecting connection from corrosion if crimp only and if its to be soldered the proper application of heat and the proper amount of solder applied and getting it to flow properly through connection...

Also to prevent the connection from failure (from vibration and the such) the securing of the wiring to a proper support so any movement is prevented at connection...

Dale

[BrwBier]

In my 35 plus years as a mechanic I have had training at GM facilities, at Chrysler facilities, at Hyundai facilities and most recently at Bosch USA headquarters. GM seems to prefer solder (at least in the past), Chrysler prefers crimped and in an electrical course at Bosch I learned that solder is not as conductive as a crimped connection. In modern highly computerised cars crimped is all that is allowed. Take it for what is worth.
Brwbier

[rowerwet]

For the record,

Ignore everything I said if it conflicts with the other posters. A week-long NASA soldering school? That's hardcore!

I know what you mean...twisting a couple wires together and wrapping with black tape just ain't going to cut it with this crowd!!!

20 year airplane mechanic, the worst install I ever saw in an airplane involved wire nuts and cheap vinyl tape...

[Dale M.]

For the record,

Ignore everything I said if it conflicts with the other posters. A week-long NASA soldering school? That's hardcore!

I know what you mean...twisting a couple wires together and wrapping with black tape just ain't going to cut it with this crowd!!!

20 year airplane mechanic, the worst install I ever saw in an airplane involved wire nuts and cheap vinyl tape...

Eeeek!!!!

Dale

[Yota Bill]

I may not have quite the training some here do (NASA hasnt trained me for anything...at least not that I am aware of) but I do electrical repairs and installs of all sorts on everything from motorcycles and small cars(pos and neg ground) up to some very large earth movers (what I do for a living)...trust me, an excavator or a wheel loader will see more bouncing and vibrations then any car on the road.
While I do prefer soldered joints, crimped connections are perfectly fine, and used in everything that has an elctrical current. Every electrical plug or connector in your vehicle has the pins crimped on at the factory. They hold up just fine.

That said, I will also add that the best splice is one that isnt there. Run the wires the most direct route you can, without splicing wires togethor unless necassary. Try to tie wires togthor at the load, or a connector, if at all possible. I have even used weatherpack connectors with the shorting bar plugged into it (cant think of the name of those right now, splice pak or something like that) when I have needed to splice several wires togethor.

I do have to agree with Larwyn on this one though. For the novice, a crimped connection is probably the better choice. If you are not entirely positive you can solder it properly, then crimp it. You have a much better chance of getting a crimped connection to work properly, with no experience, then you do of having a soldered joint working well, with no experience.

[eamarquardt]

All Electricity has harmonics, and/or frequency. In a lab, with perfect circumstances DC does not, because its sine wave is stable and straight. DC is not a sine wave. If it were, it would be AC. Osmosis. Osmosis (speaking as to electrical theory) means that the electricity travels along the out side skin of the conductor.

I think you are referring to "skin effect".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_effect

As far as I know there is very little skin effect at low frequencies or DC.

Osmosis has nothing to do with electricity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmosis

Hopefully this clears it up for you.

I hope I've cleared it up a bit.

Cheers,

Gus

[Wobbly Wheels]

FWIW, I work out of a TV repair shop and it seems that most of the repairs the guys do (when they aren't swapping out faulty boards) is either replacing blown caps or fixing cold solders.
These cold solders are coming from plants that do probably billions of connections every year, albeit through automation.

Joe Average certainly doesn't have the practice to make reliable soldered joints, whereas a ratchet crimper gives you a repeatable quality connection, time after time.

A few years ago, I refit a dash on a homebuilt boat. I guess the dash was originally a project for cold winter days because it looked like he'd bought a spool of brown and a spool of black wire, climbed into the V-berth and went at it. When I initially saw the joints as I was doing the quote, it turned into a refit rather than troubleshooting and replacing a bunch of bad connections, just because it would have cost him more of my time to fix a few issues than to redo it all (with crimps)
He had used far too much heat and driven the solder well up the wire. There were a bunch of broken strands and broken wires, usually right about where the solder ended.

I personally have never seen a racheting crimper for connections ranging from 16-12 AWG (not saying they don't exist, because I am sure they do. Just pointing out they would be hard to find)

They're easy to find.
If your wholesaler can't get them, check with a marine supply.
Replaceable/interchangeable dies are nice and if you do flag terminals you'll need a different one for them.

I use both crimpers and soldering can't touch 'em for productivity. After my refit adventure, I don't solder environmental connections or connections subject to vibration. The crimp compresses the entire bundle, not just the outer strands. If they're breaking at the end of the barrel, then I'd be looking to corrosion as the source of the failure before blaming the crimp. An overcrimp certainly will damage strands (hence the ratchet crimper), but the 'creeping black death' will make them brittle and break as well.

Sounds like you guys in the "soldering" camp have the experience to reliably make good joints. Part of my job is repairs for the majority of people who don't have the skills. With that in mind, the repeatability of a crimp can't be beat.

Lacing harnesses...lol, I'd forgotten about that.

[bdosborn]

Where a lot of uneducated people (in soldering and crimping techniques) get into trouble is the do not understand each process very well...

I'm amazed at how polite this thread has remained. You should see how it goes on other forums: people go ape$h!t over this topic, even worse than a thread on guns!

I used both kinds of connections when I did my wiring, solder to splice wires and crimp push on connectors at fuse blocks. Somewhere (can't find it now) I saw a pictorial on how to solder a wire together that was great. Somebody should put together an article with pictures of how to solder and how to crimp. It would make a great sticky and it seems like we've got people that sure know how to do both kinds of connections correctly.



Bruce