whoops, my mistake. you wanting to be spoon fed after being given no less than nine auto spec wire sources and you still not being able to "find" any should have tipped me off that you weren't being serious earlier. i'll pay less attention next time.
PVC insulation absorbs fuel and ozone degrades over time. Hot stuff is more reactive than cool stuff. However, for what you are going to use it for its probably good for 5 years. For the ultimate solution use PTFE. Its expensive but so very nice to work with.
Show me acceptable wire on Digi-Key's web site (or Mouser, or whatever - and the keywords that I should have been using to find it) and I'll take back the comment that I'm going to make now, which is that you're a childish asshole. Maybe.
I sure as hell don't see anything labeled "auto spec" on there. Now maybe they do sell it. But I don't see anything with an SAE spec number, or "type GXL/SXL/TXL" or anything like that. I do see lots of UL and MIL spec numbers, but can't relate any of those to "auto spec wire." I'm sure that there's a magic decoder ring. I just don't know what it is. That's the whole question. Capisce?
You been taking the Dale Carnegie course as taught by gpsman? you sure sound like him today.
Oh, and for the record, at at least one place I used to work, custom wiring harnesses for prototyping - yes, for automotive applications - had the terminals crimped, then soldered, then heat-shrunk, then finally inserted into the multi-terminal connector blocks and potted with epoxy. I guess they must have been doing it wrong - but that's how it was done, because I watched several being done that way and even had to do a couple myself; first one supervised by someone who presumably was qualified to do so. Right about now I wish I'd paid better attention to where they bought their wire, but it was always "just there..."
Really, I thought I was asking a simple question. I'm not a professional auto electrical guy, so I don't have a rolly cart in my basement with spools of wire hanging off of it. If anyone's still reading this, if you ARE that kind of guy, where do you buy your wire?
nate
You're at best using the wrong words here. I am not going to argue further because that would involve me once again trying to guess at what you are getting at.
automotive and areospace industries do not use harbor freight crimpers. Each connector model/family has a crimper designed for its terminals and only its terminals. That is what they use. It makes perfect crimps every time. These crimpers cost a considerable sum. I don't recall seeing one for less than $400. Many are three times that. These crimpers make perfect and strong crimps. You aren't getting anything like that with your harbor frieght crimpers. You could use $150 crimpers and it still won't be right.
So if you are talking about doing it right, getting the perfect crimps like a factory wiring harness, well it ain't getting done at home unless you got money to toss into a fireplace. Everything else is some sort of compromise.
Are you going to buy Nate the $1500 hand crimper that was used in the development lab of the automaker that built Nate's car? If not, well you really don't have a point.
what environmental factors make something auto spec nate? [hint: they're also in this thread.] simply look for stuff that tolerates them
- because they're most certainly there.
Now
there is only one consistent factor in all the disagreeable interactions you have with other people nate - you.
a few guys doing automotive prototyping, and let's face it automotive is not the most demanding of applications, either physically or intellectually, vs. the entire aerospace/military/marine/factory automotive production machine. tough call!
or to put it another way, monkey see, monkey do vs:
see
table 4 crimp airborne, failures/10^6 hrs - zero.
vs.
table 6 solder airborne, failures/10^6 hrs - 0.0231.
yeah, i'll take the monkey please michael.
because being told nine different times is not enough.
you mean i'm daring to tell you something you apparently don't know and obviously are not prepared to accept? some people don't change!
you don't have a point because you didn't bother to read where i said he could get a proper ratcheting crimper for
You clearly don't know what a stress concentration is. I am done trying to teach you when you use terms you don't understand.
I can guess what you are getting at, and it's not stress concentration.
Here:
You can't get a proper automotive wiring harness crimper for less than $25. Your harbor frieght crimper is a generic crimper and in no way comparable to what automakers and their suppliers use. Want something of the production grade of work you've been babbling about? $1500 is about right for a specialized connector. For something common in a big connector company's line, a few hundred.
I've used generic crimpers. They are crap compared to the proper crimpers that are specifically designed for the terminals being crimped. I've used the crimpers that come from the manufacturers of the connectors. They work wonderful. Anything short of that is making a compromise.
And since fast-on's aren't generally what an automaker would use it's going to have to be the kind of connectors and terminals used elsewhere on the car. If you're going to rant about doing it right, then step up.
You are once again using insult in an attempt to mask your ignorance. You are still using the wrong term and since you cannot explain it with other terms it is clear you are ignorant of the mechanisms actually in play.
that's because they're not the same terminals brent. but if you're talking standard after-market molex terminals, which you really know i am, then you'll find that the ratcheting harbor freight is perfectly adequate.
oh, and i should tell you that i own both, so i /do/ know what i'm talking about. thanks for asking.
that is meaningless drivel if you're not specifying exactly /what/ the terminal type is.
indeed. their biggest problem is that they're not retard-proof. qed.
and there, you contradict yourself. again.
stress concentration is indeed the right term. but since you've yet again shown how you can read something simplified like that but not understand it, i'm certainly not going to waste my time trying to do what they can't.
it's not ignorance at play here, it's retardation. yours.
You clearly don't understand the term stress concentration the way you are using it. Solder isn't creating a stress concentration when used in a crimped connection. It creates a composite material. If you are thinking about the interface betweeen the solder-copper composite and the copper strands alone that's not a stress concentration. It is like Nate described, a more or less rigidly fixed point, and moot with a strain relief crimp on the terminal. Without the strain relief crimp it is essentially a fixed support. If you are thinking of the fatigue life of the solder-copper composite, again that's something different. Neither concentrate stress, it's a change in support conditions and material.
For instance, if you take some re-bar and stick the last 1/10th of length into a block of concrete and then load the bars, the concrete is not concentrating stress. It is supporting the end of the bars rigidly. It's a change in the support condtions.
stress concentration in soldered joints are due to voids and other issues with the soldering itself where it bonds the two parts together. In these cases it is not wire or wire with solder wicked into it that fails, but the joint between the two parts. These are not particularly relevant to a discussion of a crimped and soldered connection where the solder is simply an additional measure.
If that were the case you wouldn't be running to insults... again. You are not worthy of continued discussion.
No shit sherlock, that's one of the reasons why your chasitisement of Nate is bullshit.
Not really.
Quite clearly not. Let me know when your harbor frieght crimper's crimps survive accelerated life testing.
Your the one babbling on about how the automobile manufacturers do it. They don't do it with fast-ons crimped by cheap harbor frieght tools. Now if you are working on something from 80s or prior sure there were more connectors that resembled these things. But the 80s was a long time ago now.
Good bye.
A manufacturer like Belden should have loads of information about wire and a list of local distributors.
Are there any commercial electrical supplies, electronics surplus dealers, or building supplies?
In addition to mail order electronics supplies like Mouser and Digi- key, there's MCM Electronics, Dalbani, Jameco, and B.G. Micro.
For underhood applications, use wire insulaton rated for at least 105 Celcius because I've seen 85C insulation in there get hard or even brittle (cracks) after a few years. For wire that has to pass next to the hottest areas, I'd want to use Teflon (the Teflon goes over PVC insulation) or kapton insulation, or put polysulfone or Teflon heatshrink over it or enclose the wire inside split looming (helps a lot).
You don't absolutely need a ratcheting crimping tool, and the ordinary ones sold by Radio Shack and Marlin P. Jones seem to be good and not too expensive. I don't know about Harbor Freight crimpers. If you solder instead of crimp, put lots of stiff heatshrink tubing over the joint so it can't flex much because solder wicking back into the strands makes it crack easily.
What he's talking about in his semicoherent way is that if you have stranded wire and you make a solder joint, capillary action pulls the solder up into the wire and so the last 1/8 inch or so of the wire becomes much stiffer. Unless you have strain relief, the wire will break internally at the point where all the vibration stress is centered, which is the point in the wire where the stiffness ends. Not a problem in a fixed installation, but a big problem in a high vibration environment like a car.
There are, in fact, connectors that are designed to provide strain relief in this way; the end is soldered and then a crimped sleeve is added to provide mechanical support. However, ordinary crimp lugs are not this way.
With regular crimp connections, and that goes for anything from the NAPA crimp lugs up to military-style Bendix connectors, reinforcing them with solder will make them stronger but it will also make them fail in high-vibration environments like cars.
Office of Naval Research first discovered this during WWII.
--scott
I actually rewired a Datsun 210B with surplus military teflon hookup wire when I was younger and had a lot more time. By the time the car was five years old, all the PVC insulation in it had turned to goo and the owner sold it for me for $50.
However, for general auto use, there are a lot of different insulation types that can handle oil and are a lot cheaper than extruded Teflon. As I suggested earlier, check out the Belden industrial control products stuff, cables and wire intended for elevators and robots, etc.
What makes the crimper good is that it has the correct die for the job, not that it's ratcheting. The ratcheting sure makes it a lot easier to use, though.
IDEAL makes a good crimping tool with removable dies for standard lug types for around $50. It is indeed ratcheting. You'll probably have another $100 in dies before you're finished. It will only do flat crimps; it cannot crimp the military terminals that require compression in two planes at once, but it's sufficient for most automotive terminal types if you buy the right dies for it.
The Radio Shack crimpers come in two kinds, one for insulated lugs and one for uninsulated lugs. They feel godawful and I think if you're doing much work you probably want something that won't hurt your hand so much.
The Harbor Freight crimpers I don't know about, but every product I have ever used from Harbor Freight failed in a way that involved someone getting injured. Medical costs today are too high for buying crappy tools to be a savings.
--scott
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