Doggggboy
Ultra Member
The solder in these melts at 280-320F according to them
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Adhesive lined heat shrink tubing
- Thread starter PeterT
- Start date
Damn you! Now I have to go buy another Fn tool!
140mower
Don
I have tried that all in one heat, solder and shrink tube a couple times. Not sure if I don't hold my tongue just right or what, but I think I had about a 50% success rate. I don't mind soldering, then shrink tubing in separate operations, at least I know what to expect from my efforts.....
Well, if that is true it's no damn good. As I recall, underhood temps routinely reach 400F. Even the coolant temp can reach 250 under extreme conditions, but normally doesn't.
Can't wait for @CWret 's report!
Doggggboy
Ultra Member
I rechecked. Thought it was a Dewalt cause it's yellow. Nope.
Wagner and it claims 1350F.
EDIT: I see some type faster than me……
That is the part that keeps me from trying these.
I want to be able to see that I have a good solder joint before covering with (double wall) shrink tubing. If the wire isn’t perfectly clean (rare in an auto repair splice) before soldering, it can be as bad as twisting the ends together and hoping.
The low melt temperature solder is a concern too because if you can melt the solder with a heat gun (and I don’t think they’re thinking a re-work station) and not melt the insulation then you could fail the solder joint at under hood temperatures without expecting it. That won’t happen with normal 60/40 solder.
I wouldn’t use it near an airplane for sure, especially anything from Amazon! I doubt that it could be signed off as a repair with approved materials. Aircraft repair/certification rules are quite limiting, if it doesn’t say you can do it, you can’t.
BTW, Digikey is a very good place to find high quality and consistent material at a good price. Usually the material will be specified to conform to military standards (MS).
D
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For those of you looking for sleeves with a built in solder they are called "solder sleeves". They are very common in aviation. They are installed with a good quality heat gun. I use the same one for heat shrink and for solder sleeves.
Edit: The ones from cheap sources like amazon vary a lot in quality. I have found them to be anywhere from total crap to acceptable. Same thing with ring terminals. Bare minimum quality control should be to to pull after completion to see if it comes apart. With blue ring terminals from Princess Auto I had a 100% failure rate with a simple pull test.
I've tried those solder sleeves more out of morbid curiosity. Maybe for a hard to access wire deep in the bowels of a machine? They work, but... (at least with my tools) I'm often left wondering - is the joint behind the sleeve good or equivalent to a cold solder joint or something in between? The shrink section is semi transparent so you can see the solder melt somewhat. I have this heat reflector do-dad that clips on the end of nozzle, seems to help focus the heat & surround the connector. But I doubt I'll use them much. I'm more old school, make a good solder connection, then it gets sleeved. As a rudimentary test I tried melting my regular solder with my heat gun & it took some effort so I'm guessing whatever alloy they use is the all-in-one must be some kind of special blend? Maybe they are more intended for automated machines or more specialized heat guns, not sure.
LOL, I'm going to have to own that one! I had a look and Digikey has TE MIL-S-83519 listed parts suitable for aviation use. They're not the same price as the Amazon versions though, I saw one at $4.57 and another with a bonding lead at $9.97 - each.
Rated temp 176C with Sn96 solder and for use with MIL-S-83519/1 wire. Definitely not Amazon or PA.
Haven't seen sleeves used in the MX shop I frequent though.
They do use AMP or similar crimp & strain relief terminals and the proper crimper, no PA parts.
D
I'm leary of that. In my world, MS meant Material Standard. MIL meant Military.
I'd be somewhat shocked to learn otherwise. Then again, seems like the confusion of the modern world is conspiring to keep me in a somewhat constant state of shock. So why should this be any different!
Sadly, I used to see this all the time when I was still working. It's one of the only methods worse than those God aweful butt joints. Now that I'm retired I see it on tractors and farm Impliments instead.
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Repeat after me: Time Equals Money
Quick math, using easily calculated values. A decent income in Canada is $120k before taxes for a 40 hour work week. Roughly 2000 working hours a year. Each hour earns you $60. So each minute is $1.
The time and tool difference between quick-n-sketchy all-in-one connection and step-by-step crimp/solder/heat shrink can’t be more than a couple of minutes.
Is it worth $5 of time to make sure you have a solid protected connection?
Absolutely. I only investigated vehicle fires when someone was killed. I looked at a lot of fires. Sometimes an entire family died when their house burned down because of a vehicle fire in the garage. $5 is peanuts.
In the world I worked in you'd see specs like MS35206 which you can see on THIS PAGE refers to MS35206H, MILITARY STANDARD: SCREW, MACHINE-PAN HEAD, CROSS-RECESSED CARBON STEEL, CADMIUM PLATED, UNC-2A, a particular type of military standard Philips Pan head screw.
Click the link on the page to see the actual specification document which lays out dimensional and minimum strength requirements etc.
I don't know why there are MIL-STD-XXXX DOCUMENTS AS WELL AS MSXXXX standards.
D
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Nothing like digging into a fault on a car or something and finding splices like that with corroding wires wrapped up in gooey, decaying black "electrical" tape.
Nothing like a butt joint with white dust holding together the last couple of strands after a nice salt bath....
D
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I get what you're saying, especially if you're being told to get the (anonymous customer's) car out to get to to the next job but if it's your reputation or your own gear there's the old tag line: "You can pay me now or pay me later"
If you're freezing your fingers off on the side of the road in the middle of a snow storm, by all means do what you gotta do to get home where you can fix it right. If you do it in the comfort of your heated shop then what are the odds that when that makeshift joint fails and you're in the middle of a snow storm on the side of the road you'll wish you spent the extra few minutes to fix it right the first time?
That said, a lot of "hands on" types just don't know that there's a better way.
D