Technical Do you need to soder or butt crimp wire slices?

I worked in one of the big 3 engineering centers for over 20 years, and we were taught that any wiring splice that wasn't soldered was a temporary connection..........period!

 

IF you know how to solder properly, solder connections are fine. I have never had a solder connection let go, but have had plenty of supposedly good crimp connections fail. And there used to be plenty of soldered connections on aircraft - like the 27,000 or so that I had done on Fokker F-27 multiple connectors- some of those suckers had 140 terminals in a 2" circle!

 

the dreaded HF has a hydraulic hand held crimping tool. it is THE TOOL to use for crimps cost about $50 but use it once and you will be impressed

 

GM training center says solder all crimped terminals except world 100. Butt connections with soldered splice clips or heat shrink sealed butt connectors of the propper size for the wire gauge. They think we cannot control the pressure of the crimp as accurate as the mass produced junk.

 

Although I agree with you in theory, I disagree with your timeline. There was soldering still done on American cars into the 60's, have seen it many times (my current 63 Falcon had some soldered splice joints). And the Japanese cars into the 80's (don't know if they ever wised up or not, haven't worked on a Japanese car since NISSAN was Datsun).
And I also agree with you that soldering has No Place in spicing, especially on a car or aircraft. It is still done in some instances in the electronics world (although rare) but not in components that have the harsh environment of an automobile.

 

I guess these flew under your radar then.

Bogging this thread down with more proof than anyone cares to look at wouldn't help. Getting beat with the soldered splices wouldn't help either.

But this always very true.
"It's not what you do not know that gets you into trouble-
It's the things that you know for sure that just ain't so. "

Think it was mark twain.

He also said " Its easier to fool people in the first place than it is to get them to believe they have been fooled"

 

True confessions. When I was younger I'd twist wires together like a hack when I was "fixing" electrical problems. Then when I got older I assumed I was upping my game by soldering connections. Now I don't know what to believe. I guess I'll buy a crimping tool? I guess the moral is don't let me wire your car

 

If you buy a crimping tool, and read a how-to on how to use it properly, you should be fine.

Make sure you understand that the different colors of terminals mean they are to be used for a certain wire size. The terminal packages say right on them what size terminal to use with what size wire. And make sure you crimp them well.

I haven't had any trouble with either soldered or crimped connections on my stuff. But maybe that's because I know how to do both properly

 

Cars can suffer from wire vibration and solder joints can fracture, if a crimp is done properly it won't pull out.

 

I said hard-pressed, not impossible.... LOL. Yes, you could find the odd solder splices in Detroit harnesses into at least the 70s, but out of the 100+ wire connections in even a basic OEM harness, solder would be a very low percentage. And you almost never find them where they're subject to vibration.

I used to solder, about 30 years ago. Then I had a truck that had been altered for both trailer and camper connections and the harness had been done with solder. Well done too; no messy joints, and carefully tape-wrapped with quality tape (pre shrink tube). I ended up replacing every one of those splices, one by one, as they failed from vibration.

Soldering has been illegal for field connections in the electrical industry for longer than I can remember (it was already long-banned when I started in 1975) for sound engineering reasons. Those engineer guys are pretty smart (at least at the rules-making level), who am I to disagree?

 

Which electrical industry? Wiring buildings?

 

One more myth I'll dispel....

You hear it stated that if the solder gets hot enough to melt, you have more serious problems than that. Well, that's true to a point, but there are fairly common issues that can fail a solder joint faster than a crimp. First, it takes less heat than you might think. Solder will start softening at lower temps than most people realize; if you don't believe me, try using it as filler metal for repair before powdercoating. At as low as 350F, solder will 'move', above 400F it will pretty much run off.

And you can easily get 'localized' heat issues at device terminations. Have a slightly poor connection or a failing contact in a switch or relay and the heat generated can transfer to the terminal and burn it, all without tripping the overcurrent device. I've seen large aluminum wire burned in two from this, and copper wire with several feet of insulation missing.

 

Yes. Any wiring that falls under the NEC (national electrical code), so it's not limited to just buildings. Portable generators and equipment, stationary equipment, anything that operates above 50 volts and involves life safety.

Solder is allowed in specific cases, but it has to be part of an 'approved assembly' i.e. factory built and has to be approved by a testing lab like UL.

 

As long as we are going back and forth on this, .....question(opinion?) solder or crimp on battery cables? I have done both, but the solder ones were with welding cable, and the crimps were with "normal" battery cable.

 

If you don't crimp anything else, crimp your battery cables!

 

Thanks, I'll pass that on to a friend that will be making up cables(with my crimper) for the battery banks on his O/T project

 

Can someone that knows everything please tell us what crimpers are SAFE TO USE and which are no fucking good and should be scrapped? Bob

 

Screw it. Do what you like and good luck. There. And....... get off my damn lawn!

 

I have this one and it is Awesome. It comes with the different proper jaws for different connectors and it doesn't release until the crimp is at the proper torque
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/pnx-t3001/overview/

 

These ones are pretty much useless for crimping.

 

We really have a lot of people commenting on issues that have nothing to do with cars. House wiring is a whole separate issue from cars. As a retired automobile mechanic I can tell you that both crimping and soldering can be successful or can fail. If done correctly they both will last a lifetime.
Regarding crimped connectors get quality terminals and a quality crimper. Pliers do not qualify! Tug on the completed joint to check for mistakes.
Regarding soldering, use only enough heat as is necessary to get the solder to flow and only enough solder for the joint. Usually feed the solder from the opposite side of the joint as the heat.
Both types need to have the wires well routed and well anchored or you will have problems from breakage down the road.
As to the original question, an unsoldered twisted splice has no place in a car!

~Alden

 

Well, the one crimper you should throw away is the usual parts-house ones with the football-shaped crimp opening for insulated terminals. These only provide about a 70% crimp at best, and are the big reason crimps have a poor reputation with some people.

For your typical round-barrel crimps, use uninsulated ones and use a crimper like this:
http://www.idealindustries.com/prod...3&l1=crimp_tools&l2=wm_9-3-4_multi-crimp_tool
This will give a 100% crimp if used right. Ideal is just one supplier, T&B, Klein, and others make this type. The more openings the better, the crimp should fit snugly in the circle half of the opening. About $35 most places.

Can't find uninsulated crimps? Cut the plastic off the insulated ones...

If you're using any type of 'specialty' crimp (GM weatherpak, AMP/Tyco, Deutsch, etc), you'll need one designed for that crimp. Again, using the wrong crimp tool is why these can fail. The best ones will be the 'official' tool as supplied by the manufacturer (big $$ usually), you can find 'generic' versions for less but you have to pay attention to how well they work; if the crimp doesn't look right, it's not....

 

Electricity is electricity; it's doesn't know if it's in a car, plane, boat, or house. While not all wiring methods are suitable in every case, the forces at work are the same.

 

Those have one use..... The screw cutters are handy. As a wiring tool, yep, worthless....

 

How many types can this do? Will it do all the 'OEM' style crimps with the 'ears' that grip the insulation? Those are the finicky ones, a crummy crimper will just make a mess...

 

X2.. Retired from the airline industry as mechanic. No soldering everything was crimped with good quality crimpers and butt splices ,also water proof splices. It worked on extreme temp variations ,oils, fuels, vibration . I never solder anymore. But the key is good quality crimpers ratchet type and splices from a supply not Harbour Freight

 

Hell that is pretty much everyone on here. Ha.

 

Except for the fact that much "house" wiring is one solid strand and most car wiring is multistrand. Very much two different breeds of cats!

Also the higher voltage alternating current in buildings can cause vibrations that low voltage direct current in automobiles will never be exposed to.

Everything else being equal just the difference in voltage changes everything.

There are definitely different forces at work comparing high voltage AC to low voltage DC in two distinctly different environments!

~Alden

 

House wiring has a higher scrap value than automotive. Bob

 

Let's take this a piece at a time....

Not as true as you think. While residential wiring will have mostly solid wire, you can't buy insulated solid wire in sizes larger than #8, and you'll rarely see larger than #12 solid elsewhere because it's too hard to pull in conduit. Get outside the residential market, and solid wire becomes even less used. Commercial buildings will use 12 and 14 solid sometimes, but industrial can be all stranded more often than not. And except for some minor differences in terminations, the same rules apply for both.

I don't know where you got this one.... There's less vibration, much less compared to automotive use. Those who may remember aluminum house wire, one of the biggest reasons it disappeared is the 'manufactured home' builders fell in love with this stuff because of the price and ease of installation. But what they found was that while transporting the 'home' to it's final destination, the vibration from going over the highway caused the connections to get loose. Burned up a lot of homes before they figured this one out, and eventually banned aluminum in the smaller sizes because it didn't like any vibration.

What's voltage got to do with it? Yes, at higher voltages you need insulation rated for the voltage, but that doesn't change the copper in the wire or the amount of current it can carry. And things like switches, panels and relays have to take into consideration clearances between live parts and arc suppression. But amps are amps, this is what produces the heat inherent in any system at any voltage and the methods for managing that are the same, regardless of voltage.

When you learn electrical theory, they don't teach different kinds for residential, automotive, electronics, or any other sub-branch; the same one applies to all.... Granted, if learning only a 'specialized' branch (like automotive) they may only teach a limited amount of theory, but ignorance of the rest doesn't mean it doesn't apply.