[TR] soldering

[Randall]

> There's a school of thought that crimped connectors are better than
> soldered connections with respect to vibration and mechanical
> intergrity. 

There is another school of thought that says they aren't.

I used to work for a company that installed mini computers on board seismic
survey ships.  We supplied a lot of the electronics and cables that
connected the computers to the other systems.  Every single installation I
went out on, I found at least one dodgy crimped connection; made by trained
professionals using carefully calibrated crimping tools.  If even a pro
using an expensive (and annually recalibrated) tool can't reliably make a
good joint, what chance does an amateur have?  Oh yeah, they also had a
different tool for every combination of connector type and wire size.

I've also found lots of DPO crimp joints that were bad.  Don't recall ever
finding a bad solder joint, except those where the wire wasn't well
supported and eventually broke outside the solder.

OEMs like crimp because it's cheaper, and easier to automate (or train
workers to do by hand).

IMO the best type of joint is combination crimp and solder, which is what I
use when I get the chance.

-- Randall