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Weller works fine for me.

MichaelG.

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http://www.mytoolshed.co.uk/p9780/Weller_8100UD_Expert_Soldering_Gun/product_info.html?utm_source=googleversafeed&vfsku=9780&gpla=pla&gclid=CLz7y7zXmtMCFYoK0wodJrYCiw

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 10/04/2017 21:03:53

Just posted the link

MichaelG.

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P.S. … At the risk of stating the obvious: they only work on AC

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 10/04/2017 21:06:03

I have a Well 125 gun that I purchased in 1965 and it works just fine. Wonderful fast!  Very simple. Not much to go wrong!!

Pete

Edited By Peter Krogh on 10/04/2017 21:33:16

A friend of mine uses a hot air soldering gun for soldering car electrics.

Please forgive my total ignorance on this topic but i'd like to ask,

What advantages does a gun type iron have over a normal iron?

Michael W

Doesn't need to be left on, ready to start fires and cause nasty burns. And by heating up rapidly, it isn't an inconvenience. Not much use for small surface mount components but for through hole compts and sticking bits of metal together they are apparently pretty handy.

Here's another rather earnest Canadian* (I'm guessing by his accent), explaining how they are useful:

I believe the solder tracks back up the multi-cored wire and acts as a stress point where it stops, hence the need for strain relief incorporating the outer insulation.

Personally, I think the problem is often too much solder, rather than too little; frequently caused by an iron with too little heat capacity.

That is, one needs to offer the iron to the joint for too long to get it hot enough to melt the solder, thereby heating up too much of the wire, albeit slowly; this allows the solder to track too far up the wire.

It's not just about speed and cost that the highest quality, mil spec, connectors tend to be crimped rather than soldered.

Regards

Bill

We used to use the weller guns for quick and dirty cautery in the late 60's but if you didn't want to get bitten was a good idea to make sure plenty of anaesthetic about. The tips used to burn out quite quickly though – a corrosive effect of burn blood and tissue or just the temp of burning carbon?

Wire wrapping does seem to have fallen by the wayside, I had a fault on a robot once where I had to get the entire card cage out to access the backplane which was wire wrapped, turned out that the wire was too tightly pulled against one of the posts and had shorted out, took seconds to fix but half a day of diagnosis and dismantling. I think wire wrapped backplanes have fallen out of use for a number of reasons, multi-layer PCB backplanes with plated through holes are much less labour intensive and equipment seems to be more modular with either ribbon cable interconnections or fast serial links. LSI has also put much more onto one board so racks of cards are less common.

Mike

Soldering on a car is only ever suitable for PCBs and never any flexible wiring. Fast heat soldering guns have long been deprecated for any professional use.

Even performed whilst sat at a well lit bench, with a proper temperature controled soldering iron by a person who has decades of experience you will not produce a joint on a connector used on cars that will have any degree of long term reliability because of wire wicking and the formation of an unsupported transition point that will crack when subjected to vibration.

Crimps are the method of choice in car manufacture not only because of their relatively low cost and speed of assembly but also because of their inherent reliability. The reliability being a huge factor in their very extensive and almost universal use in aircraft in preference to soldering.

A properly crimped joint will very easily outlast the rest of the vehicle, a soldered joint might only have a useful life of a few months.

Spend the money on a properly engineered crimp tool with crimps by a reputable supplier such as TYCO, AMP, MOLEX or Thomas & Betts)

Resist any temptation to buy a cheap crimp tool or cheap crimps from a sweat shop in the far east.

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Or if you don't want to use bullet connectors you could consider solder sleeves.

**LINK**

regards Martin (a different one)