Alternatives to those pre insulated butt joints

Or more usually at the point of entry in to the appliance.

Chris

Yeah, everybodyu knows you should just use a wire nut on it.

It's good enough for the Yanks, anyway... even on mains!

Well if you will caryy them around by the cable :-)

So their dealerships don't read their own TSBs. Actually that's not news...

:-)

Chris

I cringe when I see how some folk abuse mains electrical cables...

Chris

What main dealer work would you be talking about?

Good grief. I've yet to see an example of soldering on maker's looms. So any aftermarket additions should be using correctly crimped connectors of a similar type. The correct crimping tool takes up no more room on a van than a soldering iron and is much more practical at the roadside.

If you repeatedly flex a soldered joint it will always break just after the solder. I dunno the chemical reason, but soldering weakens the copper whereas crimping doesn't.

Recall alterations, fault repair to sensor connectors - pretty much everything. All soldered.

One wouldn't assume that the maker would need to do a repair, surely? This is what is being discussed.

There are actually a fair number of soldered "pigtail" joints on every recent Ford I've looked at however. Haynes actually indicates them on the wiring diagrams.

I'm not sure what you mean here.

We are discussing repair situations or alterations where for example the connector at the end of a section of loom needs replacing. There won't have been a joint there originally, so it would be impossible to use "a similar type."

I'm pretty sure no one is advocating soldering wires directly to an item that originally had a plug in connection!

Much more difficult to keep a decent stock of crimps than it is to carry a reel of solder however...

I'm with you 100% on the desirability of properly applied crimps versus soldered joints, Dave. 40 years of experience in the electrical industry taught me that :-)

Unfortunately, the availability of poor quality crimps and tooling, and the lack of proper skills in their use has given them a bad name in the car industry.

None of this helps the poor OP, who just wanted to do a decent job however!

Chris

If you want a cat 1 alarm etc then its a requirement that any connections are soldered if you need it certificated they wont acept crimps

if you repeatedly flex a crimped joint the wire pulls out of the crimp / cable insulation splits

most wires in a car will not be flexed in that manner so soldering or crimping will suffice

[...]

However, a pre-insulated crimp of the correct size for the wire, where the joint *and* insulation have been properly crimped, will survive both flexing and vibration *much* better than a soldered joint.

Indeed.

Chris

If one connection on an original loom is faulty I'd say there will be others quickly following it - given they are *all* crimped on manufacture. And all of a similar design. Any major alterations would consist of using a new supplied loom or part loom - dealers rarely have qualified auto electricians on call and rely on fitters. If you were replacing a faulty/damaged plug with a new one of the same design the connectors will be crimp types so should be crimped - not soldered. And crimped with the correct tool. Which will give OE results.

An AA van can't carry all the correct connectors as used in OE looms. But they can carry ones suitable for repairing damaged wiring. And these needn't be identical to OE ones. I certainly wouldn't expect a roadside repair of this nature to be permanent so those pre-insulated types would do as a temporary measure. Soldering simply isn't possible under all conditions. Like in a high wind. Crimping is.

Yes - it is common where say earths are grouped together. But not at any other connector. They are all crimped.

You can replace even a multiplug with a new one of the correct type. Or even just the damaged 'pins'. Anything else is just a temporary bodge.

Trying to solder to an old corroded and damaged 'pin' or whatever at the roadside is simply a bodge. A main dealer should replace the pin or complete connector using the same method as OE - ie crimping. It simply needs a special tool - like many other special tools a main dealer should have. And requires less skill than soldering. So no bad thing given the average dealer.

And yet you seem happy with dealers messing around with soldering irons? Not that I've ever seen it. I'm not happy with any dealer touching car wiring - other than plugging in a new component. Most simply haven't the skills.

That's because the cheapskates want to use those universal pre-insulated types. Even although non insulated ones are readily available - it's all I use as an amateur.

I'd suggest you do one of each using the same wire and connectors etc and see which fails first. I have and I know it's the soldered one. If the wire pulls out of the crimp you haven't made it properly. As is often the case with those diabolical pre-insulated types even when using the correct tool where the cable is at the bottom end of the sizes permitted. If you open one up you'll see why - the crimp tool merely flattens the crimp. A properly made crimp wraps the crimp round the cable by using heart shaped jaws.

Terminals designed for crimping have the strain part of the crimp which grips the insulation close to the 'business' part and within the distance where the copper will have been weakened by the heat. To provide an adequate mechanical strain relief they would have to be much further down the cable where the heat hasn't reached.

There is no need to use these abortions. Proper crimps specifically for car use of all the common types can be bought from the likes of Vehicle Wiring Products. As can the correct crimp tool(s).

There's absolutely no excuse for pros to use anything else. Or any hobby type if he wants a reliable result. And I've discovered this through experience of repairing/modifying car electrics for many a year. At one time I'd have agreed that soldering was the way to go. But not anymore.

Dave Plowman (News) laid this down on his screen :

They break at the point where solder ends and bare copper starts simply because that point is a natural point of high stress. Reinforce anything and it will always break at the point where the reinforcement ends - nothing to do with the soldering, or chemical reaction.

That would depend upon how the soldered joint is achieved. A properly made soldered joint will have better conductivity than a crimped one. Properly constructed it will as strong as the cable it is intended to join. With proper strain relief added it will be less likely to concentrate the strain at the soldered/unsoldered boundary and cause a fracture, plus they are less bulky.

Given a choice between a crimped or soldered joint (done by someone properly skilled), then my choice is always soldered.

Car terminals designed for crimping include a crimped strain relieve which goes round the insulation. Crimp one of these properly - and then solder one then crimp the strain relief - which of course can't be soldered - then flex them both and see which breaks first. It will be the soldered one. A connector designed for soldering will be of a different design to one designed for crimping. That's obvious by simply looking.

It happens that Dave Plowman (News) formulated :

There are often soldered joints within the actual vehicle loom itself, as part of the manufacturing process.