XT60 and soldering update

My former post was on the unwanted heating up of a cigarette lighter and it was determined that there was too much resistance in such a connector, so switched out to the XT60 based mainly on Jeff Liebermann's recommendation. I initially had great difficulties with my various soldering irons on hand heating up both the connector and the 12 ga copper wires enough to get an acceptable connection, so proceeded to order a brand new 60 watt temp controlled iron and some flux. Well, I'm happy to report that all is well. I have been pleasantly surprised by how well the combination of the iron and flux are working and all connections, while still delayed a bit, are being satisfactorily made and I no longer have lack of connection, melting, or cold solder concerns. Oh, and I have been working with silver solder too as the standard had not yet arrived.

Apparently, my other irons on hand either didn't have the correct tips, were too old to heat up correctly and/or lacking the additional flux all worked to disadvantage. I must say that this 60 watt iron heats up faster than any of my other irons. It is a pencil type and ready to go in about 15 seconds, where my other pencil units always took several min.

Thanks again to the group for setting me straight.

Reply to
OJ Oxford
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Reply to
Fox's Mercantile

Thanks for the update. Some minor comments.

More correctly, those were soldering guns, which I consider to be a really bad idea for soldering XT60 connectors.

Silver alloy solder melts at about the same temperature as 63/37 lead/tin solder. However, 50/50 melts at about 25C higher temperature. Be sure to adjust the temperature of your new soldering iron depending on which solder you are using. Also, try not to mix solders. You can mix 50/50 and 63/37, but not either of these and lead free RoHS (tin/silver/copper) solders. I'm not sure about mixing with silver solder. If you get a solder connection that is dull and not shiny, clean off as much of the solder as possible and start over with solder and flux until you get a shiny connection.

My guess(tm) is the lack of a temperature controlled soldering iron was the main contributor to your soldering problem because the copper wire was drawing away all the heat from the joint.

If your other pencil irons (or soldering guns) took several minutes to heat up, they were probably not temperature controlled. When I learned to solder about 65 years ago, all I could buy were non-temperature controlled soldering irons. At the time wood burning art kits were popular. Make a "painting" with a piece of wood and a wood burning iron. Later, I graduated to essentially the same irons, but made for electronics. It was perhaps 20 years later, that I was introduced to a proper temperature controlled soldering iron. The difference was amazing. The temperature controlled iron (Weller TC-201T) had a "magnastat" thermostat in the iron to control the temperature. Unlike the non-temp controlled iron, the iron could produce far more watts than needed to heat the tip, and regulate the temperature with the thermostat. The non-temp regulated iron had to dissipate the exact amount of watts necessary for the tip to stabilize at the desired temperature.

Another advantage is a temp controlled iron will not cool down (much) when the tip is touched to the work. The thermostat senses the drop in temperature, and increases the current to the heating element to compensate. Such a temp drop is likely when soldering large gauge copper wire, which acts as an excellent heat sink to draw heat away from the joint.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

I went the same route. Years ago I used just the unregulated irons. Usually in the 30 to 40 watt range was recommended for solid state. They took a while to heat up. Found out they were just putting out one heat and depending on the air to limit the temperature.

When I first saw 60 and above wattage irons recommended for solid state work I thought that was way too much. However they were temperature controlled and would cut the power up and down to maintain the temperature to a much more constant heat.

I do have a big soldering gun of around 200 to 300 watts for soldering the larger stuff If I just want to make one or two quick connections on larger wiring. If more, I use a big 100 watt iron. It is not temperature controled, but the tip is about 3/8 inches in diameter and the flat part is about 1/4 inch thick. It does not cool much on the larger wire. Lots of thermal mass.

Things have changed a lot for soldering. It used to be get in quick and use heat sinks on the leads. Now the SMD uses hot air wands and you play the air over the parts for a while tuil the solder melts.

Reply to
Ralph Mowery

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The low vapor pressures of lead-tin-silver, lead-indium-silver or tin-silve r solder alloys or other combinations will be different with desoldering/so lder removal vacuum tools. Do they it mix it all together if resuse is need ed? I've never used a vacuum for solder removal.

Reply to
Transition Zone

The fun part was different size tips would produce different tip temperatures. Tiny sharp tips would get so hot that the tip would burn out. Large chunky tips would barely get hot enough to melt solder. Soldering outdoors, in the wind, was somewhere between difficult and impossible. "Tinning" the tip was a ritual not so much to improve the solder joint, as it was to make sure that the iron was hot enough to melt solder.

Same here with one difference. The temperature controlled irons were simply too expensive for me to afford in the 1960's. Fortunately, I went to skool near Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica, CA, which had an excellent surplus outlet. I bought a large box of Weller soldering stations featuring thermostatically controlled TC201 soldering irons. Included was about 200 assorted Weller tips, all burned out. In all cases, the nickel plating had worn off, exposing the underlying iron plating which was generally intact. I setup an electroplating system and was able to re-plate most of the tips. The tips were quite usable but didn't last as long as new tips because I didn't use enough nickel plating. Something like this:

Resurfacing Hakko Tip (Electroplating) (11:02)

My weapon of choice for soldering big stuff (battery lugs, high current electrical connections, tinning #8 AWG or larger, shields, antenna wires, etc) is a propane oven and a big block of copper on a frying pan handle.

For big tip cleaning, I use a block of sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride): My block was originally about the size of a brick, but has shrunk considerably after years of use.

Sal Ammoniac How To (7:34)

Before I bought a hot air SMD workstation, I was using two soldering irons as if they were tweezers. After having a few too many parts fly away, never to be seen again, I switched to the hot air system. However, the parts are so small now that if I blow too much hot air, they will again fly away, never to be seen again. So, I'm looking into an infrared soldering station (also known as an automotive cigarette lighter on a stick):

Infrared soldering iron with your own hands. 3 WAYS to make an IR soldering iron yourself. (10:04)

Ummm... I guess I should mention that none of the soldering systems I mentioned here will work with XT60 connectors.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
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Jeff Liebermann

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