On 3 Feb 2006 06:34:48 -0800, "Harry Muscle"
Gave us:

OK, so it looks like what I did is not good (soldering the stranded
wire before connecting it to the screw terminals on the outlets).
However, instead of changing all the wire or getting outlets that work
better with stranded wire, can I solder on connectors like these:

http://www.horseguardfence.com/imgcom/59g_and_wire.jpg

And then connect these to the screw terminals on the outlets? Can I
just solder these on or is there any special crimping that needs to be
done to these? Do I need a special crimping tool or are these usually
made to work with normal pliers.

Thanks,
Harry


Crimp terminals are designed to work on stranded wire without a
solder backfill or pre-tinned wire of any kind. Of course this does
not include wires manufactured with tinned strands. The bundle of wire
needs to be a bundle where all the strands are NOT melded together.
The whole key to a gas tight crimped fitting relies on this form of
malleability. This is why crimping onto a single solid strand is less
reliable from the industry's POV.

AFAIR that is a mil spec. There are several reasons.

One is that 8 out of ten solderers has very cursory skills at it.
It is hard enough getting them to solder a standard through hole lead
in place correctly. That is why mil spec has such numerous inspection
steps.

When tinning the end of a stranded wire, the entire "hot" portion of
the operation only lasts a couple seconds. If one tins for too long,
or at too hot a temperature, the solder leaches (see capillary
attraction) up the wire, stiffening the wire over a half an inch up
its length.

It requires long learned repetitive skills to tin properly, and the
first person in here that trivializes it is one of the eight out of
ten, I guarantee it.

Another reason is, of course, solder creep.

Adding solder to a crimped connector AFTER it has been placed on the
wire is the least mutative, most integrated method, but it is still
unacceptable, IIRC.