Soldering instead of crimping

If you solder well (most don't) solder them, If you don't then go with the crimps. I have done both, solder and then crimp, and then wrap the whole thing in electrical tape. For me it realy depends on location, If I can get a soldering iron in with out burning the place down I will solder, if not I will just go with the crimp. I will second the good crimper, there is a right, and wrong way to do it.

I work on new commercial aircraft for a living and as you might imagine, there are thousands of electrical connectors small and large on an airplane. They don't get soldered. They get crimped. They do have a few small wire splices that have solder built into them but 99 percent of the time everything is crimped

In a manufacturing process, crimping is just as effective as soldering and much faster. In a proper crimp, the heat produced by the compression force is enough to cause the metals in the lug and wire to soften and flow together. The lug and wire become welded. If you have ordinary hand tools, instead of specialized crimp tools, this compression weld does not happen and all you have is a relatively good mechanical connection. Moisture can get into the connection and cause corrosion and eventually its failure. Soldering the lug and wire welds them together and lessens the chance of corrosion failure.

da.bees wrote:
I have a Schumacher charger that I thought was going bad because charge rate jumps up and down. Noticed a spark from postive clamp handle and on closer inspection,the cripmed connection is bad. No corosion,no broken wires and no crack in crimp but gentely moving the handle or wire causes continuity to come and go. Who should know crimping technique better than Schumacher? I say crimp it then solder it. I believe corosion at soldered joints are the result of wrong flux,filler and/or failure to clean flux residue from completed joint.

I've seen the crimps of the schumacher chargers and they are NOT anything resembling a good crimp on the ones I've seen. They just flatten the ears over the wires. An indication of why a bad crimp or bad solder joint gives you problems. A good crimp is gas tight and will last. But as I mentioned earlier, the $10 crimper next to the solderless lugs at the hardware store is NOT a good crimper either. $50 will get you a Sargent crimper with removable crimp dies and one set of crimp dies. about $25 for each set of crimp dies. Will give you a quality crimp on wires between #12 and #24.

If you are really anal about the difference, take a GOOD digital multimeter and measure the voltage drop across a crimped connection vs a soldered connection, under heavy load. You will notice a fairly significant voltage drop (millivolts) across most crimps, and no drop across a soldered connection. That said, it likely wouldn't make any difference in the OP's solar connections, where crimps would be fine.

gcloss wrote:
Soldering is always preferred over just crimping.

Not true. One must be very careful soldering as wire can fatigue and fail right next to the rigid solder joint. This is especially true in higher vibration environments.

In aerospace virtually all joints are crimped. The difference is the terminals are good quality (as are the crimping tools). Both can be had by the consumer (I have them) and it doesn't cost much more to do it right. Finding good wire is more problematic.

A crimper that looks like this is what you want.

This is what you want to avoid...both the el cheapo terminals AND the crimper.

da.bees wrote:
I have a Schumacher charger that I thought was going bad because charge rate jumps up and down. Noticed a spark from postive clamp handle and on closer inspection,the cripmed connection is bad. No corosion,no broken wires and no crack in crimp but gentely moving the handle or wire causes continuity to come and go. Who should know crimping technique better than Schumacher? I say crimp it then solder it. I believe corosion at soldered joints are the result of wrong flux,filler and/or failure to clean flux residue from completed joint.

I say buy a better charger that was crimped properly. Consumer goods (especially Chinese) are not a good example of manufacturing to last.

Dakzuki wrote:

gcloss wrote:
Soldering is always preferred over just crimping.

Not true. One must be very careful soldering as wire can fatigue and fail right next to the rigid solder joint. This is especially true in higher vibration environments.

In aerospace virtually all joints are crimped. The difference is the terminals are good quality (as are the crimping tools). Both can be had by the consumer (I have them) and it doesn't cost much more to do it right. Finding good wire is more problematic.

A crimper that looks like this is what you want.

This is what you want to avoid...both the el cheapo terminals AND the crimper.

x2. and RV's do see vibration.

My preferred crimper for smaller connector is this Sargent unit with interchangeable crimp dies.

Sargent crimp tool

Simpe answer--either one done correcty will last---either one done poorly will not last

For small wires, I pretty much solder everything, then use shrink wrap or silicone tape to insulate it.

For larger gauge wires that I installed in my solar system, between the inverter, solar controller, and battery, I bought quality heavy duty lugs (got high quality ones at the electrical depot dot com), and used a Hobart crimper. I pushed Ox Gard Anti-Oxidant grease into the wire before putting in the lugs, crimp them really good, then used adhesive infused shrink wrap. These connections all seem to be holding very very well, and I would definitely do large wire lugs the same way.