wrote:
On Sun, 28 Jun 2009 08:43:01 -0700 (PDT), JIMMIE
wrote:

On Jun 27, 11:15 pm, (Doug Miller) wrote:
In article , JIMMIE wrote:





On Jun 27, 1:52=A0pm, (Doug Miller) wrote:
In article .=
com, JIMMIE wrote:
On Jun 27, 10:24=3DA0am, (Doug Miller) wrote:
Code violation, and, if underground, unsafe besides. Electrical codes =
are
there for a reason. Don't advise people to disregard them.
Agreed especially since he mentioned soldeing the wires. The code
should be violated only by those who know how |.
Soldering isn't a Code violation.
I dont know what the NEC says about soldering but its a bad idea.
Solder joints cant handle 20 amps of current unless they are made
extremely well. Ive known to many really fine electricians that
couldnt solder worth anything. Even a pretty good solder joint will
melt with 10 amps. Cycle the load on an off a few times and the joint
will soon have more resistance than the hair dryer someone had been
using on the circuit.
Complete nonsense (except for the part where you say you don't know what the
NEC says -- *that*, I believe).- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -
I know that solder joints are forbidden on primary power circuits by
contract in many applications because there are reliabilty problems
with them. I also know that I have the skill to make such connections
reliably. In my job I dont keep up with the NEC anymore but I do know
that they were allowed years ago but thought that this would be
removed one day, this was a consideration back in the 70s because it
allowed on the skill of the electrican to make mutiple connections
without ever making a mistake. Used to, and Im paraphrasing a lot
because I dont have a copy of the NEC and I will take your word for it
that it is still allowed, the joint had to be of a quality where you
didnt really need the solder before it was soldered and the connection
must not rely on the solder for a circuit path, I take it this is
still true. I am sure you will let me know if it is not. The problem
is that solder will melt with just a few amps of current passing
through it. Once it melts and cools it may form a "cold joint" with a
high resistance. HIGH is a very relative term in this case as it may
mean conderably less than one ohm but much greater than the fraction
of a milliohm resistance of a good joint. These damaged splice would
work fine for years as long as the load on them was low but the first
time someone added something to increase the load on them they would
fail. In the 80s we had to remove all the soldered splices from our
wireways for the above reason, they were considered substandard. This
is quite different from the philosophy of the 60's when I was taught
that soldered joints were the acme of electrical splices and wirenuts
were a fire waiting to happen.

I cant think of a single reason anyone would want to use a soldered
joint for primary power wiring with the exception of what the OP
wanted to do and that was to circumvent other NEC specifications.

Jimmie


Splices that are soldered are perfectly legal in the code but they
should look something like this with a good mechanical connection
before they are soldered.

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/splices.jpg

The open question is how you would insulate these splices.



It's funny that those splices were developed back in the
days of the telegraph and the things still work well now.

TDD