Soldering

[ringo grumio nibbler]

Right you wizards. I've been keen to teach myself soldering as it's something I've always wanted to do for when I'm dealing with automotive wiring and could of even more use on a bike, with the extra vibration and the need for even better weathering. I also fancy having a go at making up my own LCD lights should I ever become proficient enough.

I got myself a 30 watt soldering iron and stripped bare some cabling from an old PC mouse, but I'm really struggling to transfer the heat from the iron through the wire to the solder. I've tinned the tip well and the wire is clean, but this could maybe a coating on the wire that's causing the problem.

I think it's the soldering iron though as I've read that for anything thicker than PCB work at least 45 watts is required.

Thoughts anybody?

I'd also appreciate links that anybody has for "how to" articles on soldering and making up your own lights.

[Juvecu]

I use a 30W iron, the trick is to leave it 5 mins or so that it can really heat up well. Use thin solder wire that has flux inside, Maplin or the link sells the stuff. Have a saucer or a bowl near with some paper towel folder and wetted with water. Wipe the solder iron tip over the wet paper towel a once or twice to clean the tip and then use it right away. With thin wires I usually just press the soldering iron on the wire and then poke the solder wire on the tip of the iron, just above the wire I'm soldering. Providing that the iron was left to get hot enough you should have the solder flowing over the wire, it only takes a second or two.

There are other schools of thought that says you should heat the wire and press the solder wire on the heated wire, but this isn't always practical so I tend to revert to pressing the solder on the soldering iron tip. A clean tip works much better so keep wiping it on the wet paper towel in between soldering different bits.

[ringo grumio nibbler]

The wire is from Wilkinson and is pretty thick to be fair. I'll try it on standard wire tomorrow and I'll try to get some thinner soldering wire.

I thought the touching the soldering wire on to the tip idea produced a weak cold joint though?

[greywolf]

As long as the wire is melting the solder, not just the iron, it's fine.

[mjc506]

The cabling from your PC mouse will probably be coated with a thin layer of enamel, which is why it won't take solder you can either strip the enamel off with a sharp blade, or just find some different wire

[hookie]

Another thing to be sure of is that any wire must be clean I.e. no oxide or grease. New wire freshly stripped should be fine but if you touch it with oily fingers it may not solder properly. Use alcohol or some other spirit based degreaser. Old wire that has dulled should be cleaned carefully with a blade until it is shiny again. Although most solder has it's own flux, getting a small tub of it and dipping the wires in it before heating often helps as well.
          When joining wires or fixing wires to tags or terminals using heat shrink sleeving is an excellent way of finishing the job off neatly and is far better than insulating tape. Soldering is one of those jobs that gets much easier with practice and experience. Best of luck....

[Steve33]

Also consider something like this:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SOLDERING-IRON-TIP-TINNER-CLEANER-PROLONGS-TIP-LIFE-/160611863679?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item2565368c7f

Just bought some recently. After >20 years of occasional soldering it has revolutionised my soldering time.

30W iron is probably not up to soldering household (I.e.13A) cable if that's what the Wilkinson reference was about

[ringo grumio nibbler]

Cheers for all of the replies. I stripped down some "normal" electrical cable and Robert's your mother's brother!  As somebody said, and I suspected, the stripped bare mouse cable innards that I was using must have had a coating on it after all.

It all soldered really well except a silly attempt at a triple thickness braided splice. I even managed to get a really strong solder with an end to end joint and parallel soldering was also no bother.


Now   what else can I solder?

Anybody recommend any electronics tutorials/books/projects? Maplans seem to have dozens of cheapish mini projects for sale. I might start with a dummy led alarm for the bike to scare off any slack jawed thieves in the area.

[Juvecu]

How about this?

[jimbo8098]

I would suggest melting the solder on the wire rather than on the tip. While melting on the tip is much easier , it is less likely to stick to the wire when soldered. This knowledge comes in handy when dealing with tiny electronics using .5mm thick solder . Heat up the componenet or wire connection itself. When it is hot , the solder will melt on it but also stick to it which won't happen with a cold wire. If you are dealing with a sensitive component or a thin wire , try to keep the iron on it for as littele a time as possible as you will melt the flex if you are not careful. If you simply can't do that , consider buying a heatsink for the component.

It is quite interesting you bring this up , I was thinking of botching up a hot pluggable diagnosis system using an Arduino ProMini for logic. It could keep track of RPM ranges , Top Speeds , High temperatures (read off ECU inputs) along with weak lines , battery voltage and maybe some other stuff. Since it is using a ProMini , the power usage would be small (about 3V) so you could power it on a small rechargable battery which could be recharged by the main bike battery (though I will have to figure out how). Problems would be indicated with an LED located near the clocks with a port so you can add in a screen and a few buttons to get even more information.

It would be a bit of work , but I think it would be interesting to read these things from the bike , especially for tuning purposes

[Mannakin]

http://mightyohm.com/files/soldercomic/FullSolderComic_EN.pdf

This might be interesting for soldering novices!

I generally find a 30w iron is a bit "weak", I use a 40w one but you have to be careful not to cook more delicate components by holding the heat on too long.