diy solar

diy solar

To solder or not to solder?

Santa

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Nov 10, 2019
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EDITED: I have been told by different people not to solder cable lugs. I just was shown by a forum member that I should tin my connections after crimping. I know absolutely nothing about the subject. I would like to hear everyone's opinion that knows. Thanks ahead of time.
 
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Cable lugs? It really depends on the connector. A properly crimped connector forms a gas tight surface alloy between the wire and the connector. It'll be stable for years. IDC punch style connectors such as those used by telcos - krone etc - are rated at 30 years if done properly using the same principle.

IF.

In mere mortal world where we are often using substandard connectors and crook crimp tools there's a lot to be said for flood soldering and crimping.
 
Wires that are crimped tend to pull out when stressed and wires that are flexed a lot tend to break off at the solder joint.

They both have there minuses.

For larger wire there are good screw compression connectors that are easy to use and repair.

What are you trying to do?
 
If you crimp, put a zinc based antioxidant inside the crimp before you do it. It'll squeeze out of the way of the direct copper-to-copper contact and the zinc will help whatever is not making contact conduct. Furthermore it'll keep oxygen and moisture from degrading the copper-to-copper contact. I personally use a product called "Noalox"

Having said that 10ish years ago I personally have had 4 gauge wire melt at a crimped contact in my first battery bank, it didnt have any compound in the crimps and almost all the contacts were so corroded they broke off in my hand when I checked them. Scary as hell. This was with untinned wire that the lugs were crimped with a vise grip (the absolute worst way to crimp a battery cable) and I used electrical tape to cover the lug/cable join.
Every single thing I did there was wrong.

In that same battery bank I had 6 cable-to-lug connectors that I had soldered instead of crimping. None of those showed any degradation at all other than some corrosion on the cable itself. I went from soldering to crimping because it was taking so damn long to solder them and I had a lot of connectors to do.

IMO if you crimp PROPERLY with a hydraulic crimper with the right die size and antioxidant compound its as good and long lasting as a soldered connection. If its anything less than that you stand a decent chance of the connection going bad over time.

The best wire to use is tinned copper cable, that stuff is immortal, but it's expensive. A tinned wire to a tinned connector crimp even without compound will almost always last for decades at least. Never use untinned lugs.

I never, ever EVER recommend screw connectors for high amperage connections.

If you just talking about 12 AWG or smaller low amperage cables a standard hand crimp with compound in the crimp will be fine.

Soldering tip: if you wrap a doubled/tripled up strip of wet paper towel around the exposed copper of the cable it'll help a lot to keep the solder from wicking up the cable strands. If it's bigger than 10 AWG you're going to need one of those small butane torches, big 1/0 or larger you'll need a propane torch. Use plenty of heat and make sure the solder has flux in it. If it doesnt have flux add it with a little brush before you solder, a bad solder join us almost universally because you didnt use enough heat, or enough flux, or both.

Bottom line, if you dont have a real crimper, crimp it down with a vise grips and then solder it. You need to have a decent mechanical connection in place before soldering a wire of any size. After you solder it cover it with heatshrink, if you're in a marine or corrosive environment use the heatshrink with the glue inside.

In my lifetime I have done a truly stupid number of wire-to-lug and wire-to-wire connections. I've never, not even once, had a soldered connection go bad - even when I did a crappy globby soldering job.
 
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ALSO WARNING ON SOLDER ! There are many kinds of solder, quite a few are not good for electronics either (Acid Core for example), be absolute certain to use the correct type of solder lest you suffer problems. Rosin Core 60/40 (60% tin / 40% lead) is the best mix overall, imo. There are lead free solder's but they suck terribly (don't flow out as well). Also, never ever use "plumbing" solder on electronics, it won't be pretty.
 
Cable lugs? It really depends on the connector. A properly crimped connector forms a gas tight surface alloy between the wire and the connector. It'll be stable for years. IDC punch style connectors such as those used by telcos - krone etc - are rated at 30 years if done properly using the same principle.

IF.

In mere mortal world where we are often using substandard connectors and crook crimp tools there's a lot to be said for flood soldering and crimping.
I think I made a mistake. The title should read to tin or not to tin. Could a mod please change it?
 
And cheapo solder from China will sometimes not conduct electricity at all! My first roll worked fine, my second roll didn't.
 
I'm sorry, I dont quite understand, tin or not tin what? If you're referring to tinning wire you dont really do it yourself, you buy it with the individual strands already tinned and then bundled into cables. I suppose you could tin a cable end then crimp to it, maybe, but you wouldnt get a very good crimp and at that point you might as well just solder the connection in the first place.
If you're talking you REALLY dont want to solder and using tinned wire with tinned lugs and using the hammer crimp Will shows on his web site thats actually a pretty good way to go.
 
If you crimp, put a zinc based antioxidant inside the crimp before you do it. It'll squeeze out of the way of the direct copper-to-copper contact and the zinc will help whatever is not making contact conduct. Furthermore it'll keep oxygen and moisture from degrading the copper-to-copper contact. I personally use a product called "Noalox"

Having said that 10ish years ago I personally have had 4 gauge wire melt at a crimped contact in my first battery bank, it didnt have any compound in the crimps and almost all the contacts were so corroded they broke off in my hand when I checked them. Scary as hell. This was with untinned wire that the lugs were crimped with a vise grip (the absolute worst way to crimp a battery cable) and I used electrical tape to cover the lug/cable join.
Every single thing I did there was wrong.

In that same battery bank I had 6 cable-to-lug connectors that I had soldered instead of crimping. None of those showed any degradation at all other than some corrosion on the cable itself. I went from soldering to crimping because it was taking so damn long to solder them and I had a lot of connectors to do.

IMO if you crimp PROPERLY with a hydraulic crimper with the right die size and antioxidant compound its as good and long lasting as a soldered connection. If its anything less than that you stand a decent chance of the connection going bad over time.

The best wire to use is tinned copper cable, that stuff is immortal, but it's expensive. A tinned wire to a tinned connector crimp even without compound will almost always last for decades at least. Never use untinned lugs.

I never, ever EVER recommend screw connectors for high amperage connections.

If you just talking about 12 AWG or smaller low amperage cables a standard hand crimp with compound in the crimp will be fine.

Soldering tip: if you wrap a doubled/tripled up strip of wet paper towel around the exposed copper of the cable it'll help a lot to keep the solder from wicking up the cable strands. If it's bigger than 10 AWG you're going to need one of those small butane torches, big 1/0 or larger you'll need a propane torch. Use plenty of heat and make sure the solder has flux in it. If it doesnt have flux add it with a little brush before you solder, a bad solder join us almost universally because you didnt use enough heat, or enough flux, or both.

Bottom line, if you dont have a real crimper, crimp it down with a vise grips and then solder it. You need to have a decent mechanical connection in place before soldering a wire of any size. After you solder it cover it with heatshrink, if you're in a marine or corrosive environment use the heatshrink with the glue inside.

In my lifetime I have done a truly stupid number of wire-to-lug and wire-to-wire connections. I've never, not even once, had a soldered connection go bad - even when I did a crappy globby soldering job.
That is what I was told (basically) from another member here who seems to know what he's talking about. . I used the wrong word in the title though. It should say to tin or not to tin. Thanks!
 
I think go with what your capability is. If you have a crimper that will do the job then crimp them. If you have a big enough iron to solder what you have solder. If you don't have either and are doing only one job use screw try clamps.

They all work and everyone has there own opinion to what is best. Your choice.

These work really good if you put the wire in the right place. I wouldn't have picked them just looking at them but once I did, now I use them all the time. The wire goes in a so that when the screw is loosened you can insert the wire so it is surrounded by copper and when the screw is tightened the wire is crunched on all sides. The wire does not touch the screw. It is not obvious.

Good Luck...
 
I'm sorry, I dont quite understand, tin or not tin what? If you're referring to tinning wire you dont really do it yourself, you buy it with the individual strands already tinned and then bundled into cables. I suppose you could tin a cable end then crimp to it, maybe, but you wouldnt get a very good crimp and at that point you might as well just solder the connection in the first place.
If you're talking you REALLY dont want to solder and using tinned wire with tinned lugs and using the hammer crimp Will shows on his web site thats actually a pretty good way to go.
IDK?? Tin crimped wires? I think I want to know the latter. Can you drop a link please?
 
IDK?? Tin crimped wires? I think I want to know the latter. Can you drop a link please?
I think we've got some confusion of terminology going on here. "Tinned" in this context means copper wire or a connector that has a thin layer of lead/tin solder already applied to it before you buy it.

"To tin" or "tinning" is synonymous with soldering: take bare copper, heat it up, and apply a tin/lead/flux solder to it that melts and spreads out thus coating the bare copper with a layer of solder and sticking it to another piece of copper.

What I meant a couple posts above is to take a piece of precoated copper wire, put it in a precoated lug, place the assembly in a hammer crimp and whack it HARD with a large (hand maul size) hammer. The tin/lead coating is softer than the copper and spreads out and melds together when forcibly put in contact each other. Tin-on-tin crimping is somewhat forgiving of bad crimp technique.

You can tell copper is pre-tinned because it'll have a silvery-gray coating on it. You have to be careful because a silver wire can also be just aluminum and that stuff is just bad news unless you know exactly how to deal with it.
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I think we've got some confusion of terminology going on here. "Tinned" in this context means copper wire or a connector that has a thin layer of lead/tin solder already applied to it before you buy it.

"To tin" or "tinning" is synonymous with soldering: take bare copper, heat it up, and apply a tin/lead/flux solder to it that melts and spreads out thus coating the bare copper with a layer of solder and sticking it to another piece of copper.

What I meant a couple posts above is to take a piece of precoated copper wire, put it in a precoated lug, place the assembly in a hammer crimp and whack it HARD with a large (hand maul size) hammer. The tin/lead coating is softer than the copper and spreads out and melds together when forcibly put in contact each other. Tin-on-tin crimping is somewhat forgiving of bad crimp technique.

You can tell copper is pre-tinned because it'll have a silvery-gray coating on it. You have to be careful because a silver wire can also be just aluminum and that stuff is just bad news unless you know exactly how to deal with it.
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I am a beginner and will study this tomorrow. Thank you!
 
A proper crimp will never need soldered. Use a hydraulic crimping tool, you can pick them up cheap on Amazon/EBay.
 
A proper crimp will never need soldered. Use a hydraulic crimping tool, you can pick them up cheap on Amazon/EBay.
Doesn't sound cheap to me. The differences in the performance of crimp to solder to compression is so small that if you are just doing one job it is not worth your while to by special tools like a hydraulic crimper.....
 
Doesn't sound cheap to me. The differences in the performance of crimp to solder to compression is so small that if you are just doing one job it is not worth your while to by special tools like a hydraulic crimper.....

Did you even search for them? They are cheap and are a worth-while investment. Do the job right the first time around rather than skimping on quality. I'm using this one...you can find them cheaper if you search eBay and are willing to wait a few extra days for shipping. I bought this one because of using 4/0 cable. If you're using smaller cable, there are smaller versions that are cheaper.
 
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Doesn't sound cheap to me. The differences in the performance of crimp to solder to compression is so small that if you are just doing one job it is not worth your while to by special tools like a hydraulic crimper.....
$16 with free shipping?
 
Unless you are in an acidic or marine environment...

Think lead acid batteries...

I'm not sure if that was directed at me or the soldering? But regardless, you just need some heat shrink with glue that seals the connection. I use 3M UL-approved heat shrink on my cables even though they're not in a marine environment.
 
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