| Author | Message | ||
     Roy Randall Rating: N/A |
If you mean 'silver solder' you've got a problem. Silver solder is a high teperature compound totally unsuitable for electrical work. If you mean the silver coloured stuff used on electical work it's dead easy. Once you know how! Once you can do it you wonder why you had problems before. Two things are require to make a good soldered joint, heat and cleanliness. If the wire has corroded through it will be too dirty to solder, don't even bother trying, so the first step is to shorten it back to clean bright copper. After you've done that if it is now too short to reach the terminal it must either be replaced or lengthened. Next step is to clean up the terminal, usually a good hot soldering iron will do that quite easily. I used to teach assembly workers the art of soldering and the most frequent mistake is to try soldering at too low a temperature, leave the iron on the terminal till the solder starts to flow, when it will usually attach itself to the iron. This should leave the terminal clean enough to take the new joint. The next step is to 'tin' the freshly cut wire end, this is the part that most beginners do not carry out. 'Tinning' is simply the act of melting solder on to the wire end, trim the insulation back then apply both iron and solder to the wire and KEEP it there till the wire is coated with the solder. With that accomplished you then, and only then, bring wire and terminal together. Frequently there will be sufficient solder on the terminal and the wire to achieve a joint, if not, now apply the solder and watch till it flows. If you remove the iron too early you will achieve a weak, high resistance joint commonly referred to as a 'dry joint' that looks dull in colour as compared with a good joint. A good idea is to practice on some lengths of wire till you've got it. Like I said, once you can do it every time you'll wonder why you couldnt before. The major snag with a lot of soldering jobs is the need for a third hand to hold everything together, can't help you on that problem! If you still have problems after trying all this, mail me and I'll try to help further. Roy. |