Thread: Solder?
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[email protected] someone@someISP.com is offline
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Default Solder?

On Sat, 23 Dec 2006 19:28:22 GMT, "Pop`"
wrote:

Father Haskell wrote:
wrote:
On Fri, 22 Dec 2006 18:34:10 GMT, "Pop`"
wrote:

Kind of silly I suppose, but I was just wondering:

1. Does code allow soldering for residential wiring where you live?
2. Where do you live?

Please, I'm not trying to start a debate over the
science/physics/howto's of soldering or its relative pros/cons.


Why would you want to?


Better contact and less electrical resistance.

Too much work when a wirenut works fine. And you'd need about 500 to
1000 watts of soldering iron to solder a bundle of 4 or 5 #12 wires.
By the time you do it, you'd probably melt the insulation back about
6 inches and would have to tape all of that. The old cloth covered
K&T wires were intended to handle the heat of soldering. New plastic
coated wires will melt the coating.


A Weller gun will do the job quickly, without melting the
insulation, providing the wires are clean. Why would you have so
many wires joined together?


Actually, no, a Weller would be a poor choice that that application. The
heat transfer is too slow and would create the aforementioned problems.


Whatever theory says, I've never soldered because it's difficult to
unsolder, short of clipping the wires, and I've never seen anyone
else do it.


It's easy to unsolder IFF it's done right g. There's that caveat again:
"If ... "



I just tried to solder two #10 stranded wires on my car with a Weller
Gun. I could not get enough heat from it. I finally got out and old
"soldering iron". That iron is 100w I believe. Even that took too
long. I finally put a propane torch on the iron and got it really
hot. I like to solder on cars because the wires corrode otherwise.