I'm going to have to disagree here (and be the voice of reason)...soldering is NOT any better than a properly crimped butt splice. In fact, in aviation and marine circles, solder is highly restricted in use. Why...vibration causes the solder joint to fail.

Instead, buy high quality heat shrink put connectors (Ancor makes good ones that you can get online or at almost any boating store), a high quality ratcheting crimper (not the cheapo Wallyworld kind), and a good electric heat shrink gun (not your zippo or the butane type, which can get too hot). The mechanical splice will be stronger and the adhesive lined heat shrink will both seal and add secondary strain releif.

Harry

 

Leon, no problem....Just had some surgery, and I was probably just feelin' the pain a little too much. No apology required. Just a little cranky I guess. Ride safe. I'm not usually that snippy... Pain does crazy things to me.

 

Thanks Harry. These are just LED extensions so I might just give your method a try. I'm old school with solder and heat shrink normally, but that vibration theory certainly makes sense. Appreciate your comments.

 

Hope you recover from surgery real soon
ps I enjoy reading your post. My brother and I rode from here in central Calif to
the Custer Battle field last sept. You live in some pretty country

 

Yes, there is some great country to ride up this way. Did you hit Glacier, Bear Tooth, and Yellowstone? If not, come on back up. PM me, I'll provide you a nice tour. Coming from the west, Lewiston ID to Lolo MT is about 215 miles of two lane gorgeous road with a beautiful river along the entire route. When you hit Lolo, you're within 7 miles from my place. Folks come from all over the world to ride that stretch, and then up to Glacier Nat'l Park, over to Beartooth Pass, and then down into Yellowstone. You just let me know, and I'll map her out for ya.

 

I would concur with the butt splice soldered then heat shrunk with the hot melt glue (adhesive lined center) is much better. That is what I use mostly.

But we still have two problems of a sort. Most folks use a butt splice crimper improperly (over crush the wire and its almost cut in half inside the metal splice and falls in two later with vibrations), or don't have a quality tool to use properly.

And soldering can even be more problematic for some due to even more things then just not being done right. Proper solder (what ratio of alloy and its heat range), proper heat wattage being used (solder tool, a pencil vs an iron or a gun) wrong flux (never use acid core on wires, its highly corrosive) not cleaning flux off when soldering finished, cold solder joints, over flowing (wicking up into the wire insulation).

So over all, everything if not done correctly is either over kill or it is killed upon completion.

 

I normally try to intertwine the two ends of the wires I'm putting together, soak the connection with solder and then heat shrink it. Between the intertwined wires, the solder and the heat shrink, I don't believe the connection is coming apart.

 

Hey Ram, you make some very valid points. I used to think I was **** about making sure things were done right, and you've certainly educated me that wasn't the case. Can't be too careful. And HDV-Glide, that's a good approach you provide. For the small amount of juice and minimal worries about doing any real damage (these are only cosmetic LED lights mostly for when the bike is parked at night) I think I'm going to be pretty safe handling this little task. I do however appreciate all those that chimed in to help me out. Thanks to all.

 

I 100% agree with Harry. My latter training was owning a company called Signature Marine which manufactured offshore ocean racing boats. In our endeavors we did learn that solder will make the connection very brittle and always fail in that spot. I use a non insulated wire butt splice connection found at my local marine electrical supply which you purchase the size for the wire which looks like a tube.


You will need a special type of plyer for crimping
which is found at Harbor freight ITEM 36411-0VGA for $5.00.

I also use either a completely waterproof epoxy inner coated heat shrink that is activated by the heat gun or the regular heat shrink depending on the application.

I gave up soldering any wire in favor of this method in the late 70's due to failure. Do what you like.

 

These forums are great. Thanks for the good info FastHarley.