someone else crimping or me soldering

They say" We use a custom-tooled industrial crimping machine" so that it's "topnotch".

They say it wiil "eliminate time-consuming and frustrating splicing, soldering, and crimping", so even they admit one would normally solder.

I also have no wife or kids and wonder what I am saving my money for.

For small jobs, I don't trust vendors to do anything correctly on their first try (while they are learning to do the work). With do-it-thyself, you have more control.

You don't need an automated crimping machine to do 20 wires. For small lots, bigger is not better.

You're saving money so that you can pay the taxes which support my lavish and decadent life style. Thanks for your tax contributions.

I would crimp and shrink tube. Soldering is nice if you're experienced and know how to cut, strip and solder properly. Soldering is not so nice if you have to train someone to do the work. Crimping is easier and in some cases, stronger.

$28 is not much, and saves you soldering inside the car in a not confortable position, one hand holding the radio, another the cable, another the soldering iron, another the solder... oh, wait, you only have two hands.

What type of crimping? The type that Jeff showed can not be undone, but is neat. Heat shrink (and perhaps solder)? Needs to be done in a small space. Ok, USA cars are big, but is yours that big, and the cables are long enough?

In a car, I might choose connectors that can be unplugged. I had a radio like that in the 80's, they never failed. One radio was stolen and another lost, so I had to redo them. Radio was of the type that you could park the car and take the radio away with you.

Ever notice that very few stock automotive wire connections are soldered? There's a reason for that. Crimps, using a ratchetting tool, can be stronger than soldering and therefore tend to not fall apart from vibration.

"Crimping vs Soldering - Which Is Best?"

"I tested these connectors and found the best one"

There's a problem on the 2nd video at 1:45:

Incidentallly, my guess(tm) is the rather poor pull strength of the "crimp and seal" type of connection was at least partly caused by "spinning" the stranded wires.

Money well spent, then.

For that price I'd happily get someone else to do it. My soldering hasn't improved one iota over the last 60+ years. It was s*it then and it's s*it now. Get 'em crimped!

There is probably an adaptor available that will connect between your new radio and the car's existing wiring harness. That'd make a lot more sense to me than crimping or soldering the wires.

Aerpro is one company that makes such things.

Peter

I guess I should mention that if you're planning on making changes or correcting wiring errors, it's more ecologically correct to reuse soldered connectors than it to throw away non-reusable crimped connectors.

Soldering is easy if you understand how solder works. Like everything else on this planet, there are tricks to doing it correctly and easily.

For soldering, the tricks require:

1. a very hot soldering tip which is matched to the working temperature of the solder

1. quality eutectic solder and flux, preferably Kester 63% tin and

1. a soldering iron with a quick to respond temperature controlled tip. I use something like this:
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   Notice the "fast heatup" in the description. I don't need an 80 watt iron for working on tiny SMD parts. What I need is a stable tip temperature where the temperature doesn't drop when the tip hits the work piece. 100 watts might be better, but I haven't tried one like this:
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2. some manner of tip cleaner to remove the dross.

1. a steady hand and immovable work piece.

The trick is to use a hot tip and to work quickly. If you work quickly, you won't need to worry (much) about melting anything. Using a cold tip and holding the iron on the connection for an extended time, does NOT work. Keeping the connection and solder hot requires not moving either the soldering iron or the work piece. If you move when it's hot, then you get a "cold" solder joint. If you can't keep everything steady, at least clamp the work in some kind of soldering vice, rest your hand against something immovable, or use both hands on the iron.

Incidentally, I once exchanged email with someone who was having serious difficulties trying to solder. I asked for a photo of his work area. It featured a large fan blowing smoke away from the work area but also cooling the soldering iron tip. Oddly, redirecting the fan didn't help. The fan had to be turned off in order to obtain a descent connection, possibly because the tip was too small and therefore cooled too quickly.

OK, I lied. I excavated my soldering iron from the mess on my workbench and discovered that it was actually 100 watts, not 80 watts. Probably my faulty memory. Sorry.

I ran a quick test to see how fast it would become hot enough to solder. Using the built in thermometer, it went from 23C (room temp) to 360C (my soldering tip temp for 63/37 solder), in 38 seconds. That sounds about right.

None of what they would do is soldering inside the car. After all, this is mail-order and they don't have my car. All they would do is connect the harness that comes with the radio to an adapter harness, the far end of which mates with the car's speaker connectors etc.

(For a different reason, I do have two connections inside the car I need to make, and I'm not looking forward to it. One is a T-connection so can't crimp, but I could use those speedo-T-connectors, except I don't trust them either and I don't want to buy 50 to make one connection.)

And I guess someone did that!

Do soldered connections fall apart from vibration?

This video reminds me why I doubt crimping. If the crimping metal can be bent by the tool in the first place, i can't help thinking it will get tired, bend back a little, and loosen. I'm only 3 minutes into the video and I know that he, and you, will say it doesn't do that, but it's a feeling, and feelings are hard to shake.

I finished this video and he's very firm and very clear, but maybe he's being paid by Big Crimp. -- When you love a girl, you don't believe any of the bad stuff they say about her. Same with solder.

This doesn't help. If the best one is best because it's more convenient somehow, that would be okay, but it it's because it stays crimped the best that implies that others are not the best. I will watch the video and see which one it it. ..... Well, it's about resistance and tensile strenth. Continued below.

Yes, I see what you mean. And now my faith in this video has been shaken, and I can't trust anything he says!!.

So the voltage drop is 86.6 to 89.1 mv. Out of 12 volts. That strikes me as one big tie for most purposes.

Or 4.3 to 8.1 mv across the splice. Almost twice, but still, out of 12 volts. Interesting that the range in the first measurement was 2.5mv, but in the second it's 3.8.

The tensile comparison is also very intersting, but in my case they have a whole extra 6 or 12 inch harness stuffed behind the radio so there is next to no tension on it.

I can see that.

I'm looking forward to watching the video he points to at the end, Why are relay connections numbered the way they are, 85, 86, 87, 30. I've wondered about that a little myself.

Thanks a lot the links and the advice.

Look into the WAGO leaver nuts. You can get them to connet two wires or multi wires.

Don't guess. Just look it up with your favorite search engine.

Yes.

It doesn't do that. Crimping provides a connection that has no air gaps. Water gets into the air gaps and eventually rots the connection. Dirt gets in and grinds the contacts until they become loose.

I spent some time working my way through college installing 2way radios in cement mixers, mining excavators, and other heavy construction equipment. Vibration was a problem. If a wire rope lift cable or electrical cable didn't have a gap free interference connection, it would eventually fall apart. Some typical crimping tools:

Nice accusation. I like the way you assign the blame before you analyze the problem.

Visualize the same connection done with soldering instead of crimping. The soldered wire bundle is going to have cavities small all over the inside of the bundle. The crimp version might have a few bubbles near the center of the wire bundle, but the bulk of the cross section will be solid metal. I've cut into various crimps with a Dremel tool and cutoff wheel to inspect the results of some maintenance performed on a automated crimping tool. This photo is the best I could find in the time available.

Where did you get those numbers?

I used to play with small magnetic loop antennas where the RF current is quite high:

See the DIN 72552 specification:

Y'er welcome.

There is an adaptor for the speaker wires etc. but they're offering to crimp the other end of the adaptor to the bare wires of what plugs into the radio. There are so many different models of radio that they don't make an adaptor that connects directly to the radio.