Soldering in lugs?
I saw an interesting way to handle battery lugs (the ones that are sealed: 1: Put heat shrink tubing on, move it well away from where the action is going to take place. 2: Pour molten solder i...
Forum Discussion
rjxj wrote:
Solder is ok for most of the low amperage connections that we make on Rv's. If you use it on cables that get a heavy amp draw it can melt out.
They also make solder pellets that you can drop in the end of the fitting then heat and push the cable in.
I bought a china 16 ton hydraulic crimper and it works fine. The dies sizes are not perfect for the terminals sizes but it was only $48.00 with shipping.
Not true.
You are painting with a really broad brush.
There are many DIFFERENT solder formulations and each one HAS A DIFFERENT MELTING POINT.
Common 60/40 (Tin/lead) rosin core solder has a melting point of 360 degrees F. If you have a connection which gets THAT HOT you DID NOT solder that connection correctly in the first place. The reason for this is RESISTANCE makes heat in the joint and not properly soldering that joint WILL cause RESISTANCE!
You can get 40/60 solder which melts at about 460 degrees F but that is typically used for sheet metal body work known as "leading"..
Not to mention now days you have "lead free" electrical solders which use silver to replace some or all the lead and they melt at higher temps than 40/60.
I also hate to burst your bubble BUT, your crimper is worthless and will make extremely BAD crimps since the "dies" are NOT the correct sizes. Crimp connections DEPEND on having the CORRECT SIZED DIES which apply the CORRECT amount of pressure UNIFORMLY AROUND THE ENTIRE CONNECTOR AND WIRE.
I will take a badly soldered connection ANY DAY over a badly crimped connection since you can often spot badly soldered connections but badly crimped connects are HIDDEN until they fail.
If you are going to insist on crimping, BUY THE MORE EXPENSIVE NAME BRAND CRIMPERS instead of the bargain discount bin jobbers.
