[TR] soldering

[Tony Drews]

Echoing Randall...
In my race car, I've eliminated every single crimped joint in any 
circuit that I care about.  I remove the insulation from the crimp on 
connecter, I crimp the connector on, then solder it, then wrap the 
exposed area with heat shrink tubing.  I've also eliminated every 
single in-line coupling that I could.  The car had a largely stock 
wiring harness (with 2 fuses) when I got the car, now has six fuses - 
ignition, fuel, overdrive, cool suit, and a couple more that I don't 
recall right now.  All switches use screw terminals rather than the 
more modern push on connectors.  For the switches in the top of the 
OD where I have no choice but to use push on connectors, I've drilled 
small holes through them and put tiny bolts through them, then 
covered them with silicone sealant.

I did have one of my screw on switch terminals come loose once since 
I did this in 2003.  And, I wore through a wire to the fuel pump 
which caused that circuit to blow (THAT won't happen again - 
re-routed the wire).

I hate electrical problems.

Tony

At 03:05 PM 3/4/2012, Randall wrote:
> > 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