Soldering Help Q & A's
 

hooking up my brushless esc to my motor keeps getting pushed back, i never seem to have the time, and now that i do have the time, well i sort of chickened out. my knowledge and skills for soddering are pretty basic and i've never had a few hundred dollars riding on my work, heck i never had a few bucks riding on my work. i looked online but that didn't totally help. if anyone has links specificly for soddering large wires togeather, i'm all ears. if anyone has tips for the follow questions, that'd be helpful also.

are those feigao wires alumium? i heard alminum makes for a bad connection.

how much wire am i sopost to expose for the joint anyways?

mike says to twist the leads together but how am i going to do that if they're tinned?


those are my three main problems,, that and finding a new tip for my iron but i'm looking right now. thanks for the help,,,, and sorry for the seemingly endless questions

i dont know what the other guys opinions are but I used connector for the feigo.. made it a little easier to soldier. I think it was like the 3.5 mm connectors. I think mike has them. way easier. Laters man.

it takes a good iron and some patients. Make sure you have some flux and decent solder. Practice is the key.

what about the twisting thingy? am i sopost to twist them after i tin them? i had to use pliers to twist my stereo wire after i tinned them. so that can't be what he ment, can it?

Soldering is an art!
 

Its like driving either you can or trying to learn :)

Heat the base - apply the solder, watch for magic, caught the magic pull the solder iron. Done! If you haven't seen the magic (true, clear water like droplet and solder sucking somewhere :)) then repeat until you get it.

Artur

Here is a good video on how to solder deans connectors. This is how I learned to solder, and now I solder everthing like this. I find it very helpful and sometimes I just watch it to refresh my memory.

Happy Brushless,
Brijar!!!

Great video.

Go to www.balakracing.com

thanks!

i bought this iron, but it doesn't have a chisel tip, and i don't think you can get a chisel tip for it, is 40W too hot because i've read 30-40W is what you want and the hotter the better. so what do you guys think, is it what i want, or should i return it? i don't really do any soldering, i need this to solder my controller to my motor, and to redo a few wires on my battery packs, after that it'll probably be shelved until a meaningless task arises.

the iron

That should be fine. The idea behind a chisel tip is so you can make more contact with the area to solder to enable a better transfer of heat, and a larger tip will hold more heat longer. When you solder, especially larger wires, the wire tends to act like a heatsink and pull the heat from the tip until it is too cool to solder. A larger tip will help prevent this.

A 40w iron is plenty. Just make sure you let it sit for about 10-15 minutes after turning it on to let it get as hot as it will get. After soldering something, let it sit again for another 5 minutes to let it build the heat back up. If it takes more than 10 seconds to solder your pieces together, or if the iron "sticks" to the item being soldered, then your iron isn't hot enough. Tin each piece you want to solder and they will bond faster, more thoroughly, and much easier.

Some people tend to heat the solder and drop it on the wires. This makes a very poor solder joint. The idea is to hold the solder to the joint, heat the items being soldered, and let the solder flow into the joint.

Also, it is important to perform the initial tinning of the tip on a new iron. You want to make sure there is a good initial coat of solder on the tip, otherwise the oxidation that will form will be a barrier to heat. Don't be afraid to use quite a bit of solder on this step. Don't forget to wet the sponge too - it will help clear off any impurities on the tip. Once you are done soldering, clean the tip on the sponge and try not to let it run for a long long time without use. That will just allow more oxidation to form on it.

I would recommend practicing on some spare wire and connectors to get the hang of it. I think you'd rather learn from mistakes on scraps then on your expensive equipment.

Sorry for being long-winded. :)

heck, i thought i was being long winded, lol, no worries, i do know how to solder a bit, learned in school. but when i got home the methods didn't seem to work, it wasn't untill yesterday that i found out it was becuse the iron i was using was BLACK, the tip was nearly completly black and the heat shroud was blackened serveral inches from the tip to the handle, that's why i got this one. i couldn't find one with a chisel at "the Source" (radio shack equivelent) or canadian tire, so i figure this one would do. bah, i'm getting long winded again, if you guys think it's good i'll believe ya. thx!

It will work for most things. I find I like the 60 watt better though. JMO

Brijar, thanks for the video, that is a HUGE help!

macfjej, I have that exact same iron too. I just recently got a chisel tip at Radio Shack and it seemed to be a night and day difference. This is what I got for mine, only it came with 2 of the smaller chisel tips. There are light duty tips, but I'm not real sure about them because they are "iron clad". Just like Brian G said, don't drip the solder on the joint. I simply tin both surfaces, put the wire on top of the connector/other wire and push down on them with my soldering iron, melting the solder around the joint. Only one of my joints has failed so far and it was due to incorrect plugging. Be careful not to melt the connector. Just make sure you use good solder, good 12awg wire, good quality connectors, and/or battery bars and you should have no problem with that iron. Don't forget to be patient too:025:.

Damon and Johnny, thank you, I'm glad y'all like it:027:.

Brijar!!!

Soldering is easy, just take it one step at a time. I use a Weller 20w iron for simple and small stuff (servo wires) and a Weller 80w iron for anything bigger. It takes a while to heat up, as others have mentioned, but it is amazingly good once it gets there. I can do batteries like nothing (my old Weller 40w struggled with this big time), and do any wire soldering in seconds. My only gripe is that the tip is super fat, but you just gotta learn how to angle it so you don't melt the Deans plugs.

Oh yeah, when doing Deans plugs, I ALWAYS make sure to have the plug I'm soldering on plugged into another plug (with short length leads attached to that one) to not only dissipate heat, but also keep the pins in the correct spot as the plastic cools back down. I used to not do this, and my plugs just wouldn't fit together, but I don't have that problem anymore.

Hey, that is a really good tip dabid! Now I think about it, it seems like an excellent idea. I have one battery with deans and it will only go halfway onto the male connector without extreme force being applied:007:. I'm gonna try that next time I solder deans or other connectors:027:.

Thanx a lot,
Brijar!!!

Yes, good tip dabid. I actually have to do a deans tonight and I will use that tip.

thank you all for your support. from the sounds of it your not just helping me, it seems as if everyone is learning a little bit from this post. thanks for the link Brijar, though i don't think there are any radio shacks in Canada anymore :frown: but at least now i know that chisel tips exist for this model so i may be able to find them somwhere. it sounds like a lot of people use irons of a much higher wattage and i don't want to sound like a broken record but this is a hot enough iron right? and what does mike mean by twisting your leads? from what i hearing, no one does it.

again, you guys are being a huge help, i'm feeling a lot more confident in my ironing abilities, thanks guys.

Brijar, that video is awesome! For the first time ever, I soldered 7 deans connectors with no problems....well, one burned finger and half the time I forgot the shrink wrap...which lead to more practice!

Dabid, that is great advice on keeping the plugs connected. One warped a little and that would have kept it in place.

I am with Macfjej...you all are such a help! I can't wait for the 8xl so I can put it all together!

I used to be the worst at soldering and I hated it but I finally got it and am pretty decent now. I don't know how much it will help you but the single biggest help for me was using a wet sponge to clean the tip. My tips always got to the point where they would not heat the solder and when it did the solder would just fall off the tip. Cleaning the tip took care of both of these problems. Every couple minutes clean the tip and you can get alot of the black off. It seems like my tips always have to "break in" before they'll transfer heat worth a darn. I don't use the pointy part of the tip, back away from it a little and look for the shiny part to tranfer heat best.

I noticed with my screw-on tips, they didn't transfer heat that well. Then I saw somewhere that you need to use pliers to really screw them on there. After trying this, it seemed to help a lot with heating. Scoob, if you have screw-on tips, you might want to try using some pliers and tighten it down for better contact and heat transfer. Make sure you don't over-do-it, else you might strip the threads. Just tight enough so you can't easily unscrew it with your fingers.

macfjej, like I said before, I have that exact soldering iron. It has worked fine for me and will probably work fine for you. I do, however, suggest at least a 60w iron for soldering batterys together so it will melt the solder faster and not heat up the battery. I just had to take my batteries to my LHS to get them soldered, but I may just get a stronger iron next time because one of the cells blew up after a few runs:035: and I don't want to blame them, but I think it was due to incorrect soldering. I think you can get a pretty cheap 60w iron from Tower Hobbies for about $6. Clicky!

Good Luck,
Brijar!!!

That is good advice. I would like to add that you should periodically check this, especially when the iron is hot (use pliers!). The cooling and heating cycles tends to loosen the threads after a while.

Twisting the wires prior to solder is preferred. This ensures you get max. "mechanical" contact between the individual strands of wires and keeps stray wires from poking out.

I don't like cutting insulation with a knife, as shown in the video - too risky to cut into individual strands of wire! I prefer to use a wire stripper; make the cut through the insulation and pull the tag of insulation part way off - NOT ALL THE WAY!
Now grab the tag and twist it hard while you pull it off the wires! This will twist the wires neatly and tightly.

Also, when doing Dean's, here are more tips;
Use a jig. An X-acto Extra Hand is perfect to hold the wire in one clamp, the Dean's in the other clamp. Leaves your two hands free to hold solder and soldering iron.
I made my own jig using simple wooden clothes pins.

Another tip: I like to twist the wire ends, then flatten them a bit before tinning. Yields more surface area for the solder joint, and also makes for a low profile joint.

Finally, buy some better shrink wrap and cut each piece longer! The crappy ones you get with the Dean's always split, or get pulled off the joint when unplugging the connectors.

As for not needing the soldering iron: Consider it a tool like any other; consider it before you purchase, buy for quality, and treat it as if you will be keeping it forever. I have tools I received as presents when I was in my teens; over 30 years later, I still use some of them! I cherish each one don't abuse them, and am thankful I kept them in good condition every time I need them.

thanks for answering my question cadtech, i wasn't sure if he ment twisting the stands in the leads (which i always do) or somhow twisting the post-tinned leads togeather before soddering them, thankfully it's the first one. this thread almost deserves a sticky, there's a lot of useful soddering information in here that you can't find in any one place anywheres else on the web

I dont know if anyone is interested - but mike has access to a soldering iron that is,in my opinion the best i have ever used - it is adjustable from barely warm to 800 degrees f. Has a stand - Its simply awesome - and it warms up from completely off to 800 in less than 3 mins - I dont know if its listed here but it called the Hako - Ill try to find some info and post here for all interested. Trust me - once you use this - there is not other soldering iron...

HereI did a search and picked the first one with pics so you could get an idea of what they look like. Like i said - PM mike and he can pick one up for you......