electrician and soldering experts!

I'm working on hardwiring a phone charger into my corvette so that i can keep a phone hidden in it for gps tracking only. I've never soldered before or done any fine electrical work. I picked up a weller soldering gun for 15 bucks and a thing of fine electronics solder for $4 last night at osh. I have a couple questions.

1. It says in the instructions to avoid too much solder as it may cause a short. are they saying in the case of a circuit board, etc. too much solder may end up bridgeing two connections you don't want to bridge? or does too much solder on one connection cause a short? I don't want to set my car on fire.

2. What are all the diffrences in solder? I noticed that they are clearly labeled for the application but there are 2-3 diffrent alloy combinations for each application. I purchased 63/47 as it was right in the middle, don't know if that's right.

3. I also purchased a painless disconnect switch for the vette, i was thinking about soldering the copper lugs onto the positive cable instead of just crimping them. Any recommendations on solder? Do i just melt some in there on each side of the cable?

4. This one's a little out there.....does hot glue affect a circuit board? I took the circuit board out of a car phone charger and put it into a plastic electrical box which when i'm all done i will pretty up. I used some hot glue on the back to hold it in place. Was this a bad idea?

Thanks for all the help guys!

come on, no electricians? i'm sure theres lots of people here with fine electronics in their rat rods..............

I know how to hook up jumper cables, would that help?

Soldering

Ok, I've never soldered wiring on my cars but I am pretty good at soldering. I've always been told soldering can cause problems in a car because of road vibration breaking the wire at the solder point. I can't testify to that but I do know that solder can run up a wire rather easily & that can be a problem. I learned to solder while racing slot cars & R/C cars. We used "silver solder" & a little jar of acid. A good & hot iron is essential.

BoB

Good advice posted above.
As far as #4, Post pics on this please.

sweet, thanks.

heres some pics of what i'm doing...

here's the box with the charger circuit board, i used hot glue to glue it down to the plastic home electrical box. i drilled a couple holes in a cover plate and secured two studs in it with a couple nuts to run the wiring to. i soldered the wires to the wires coming off of the circuit board, orignally i wanted to crimp these but they were too short and small for that.



here it is from the top, i reveresed the plate so there would be no gaps between it and the box, i will use a couple crimped connections to connect power to the box, the connector is to the left exiting the box.


here it is temporarily gheto rigged becuase i didn't buy enough nuts to secure the wires, i attached the wires to a spare battery via some jumper cables.


it works! to be honest i was a little suprised.......but this is a good sign.

the plan is to use fiberglass or bondo on the box after dremling down all the ugliness of the cover plate. smooth it all out, paint it black, and mount it off of the painless wiring disconnect switch i also purchased recently. then i find a good spot for my phone and leave it on the gps program. the phone stays charged and the cost is 35 cents per day. It's a pre-pay account so you just have to buy cards when it gets low. $10 bucks a month. if anyone ever jacks my vette, i jump online, find it, call the cops, then jam over with a baseball bat and gun .

ahhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!! images are giving me fits tonight!!!!

eat your heart out LO-JACK

There are two schools of thought on wire terminal connections. Some swear by soldering them on, and some like crimp terminals. I came out of the marine industry, and soldered ends are a no-no in boat wiring. The solder creates hard spots that vibrations can break. It is too brittle. So, I buy high quality crimp terminals and use them only.

As for soldering, you do not want acid core solder. That is for copper tubing. You want rosin core solder that is made for wiring. Acid core will cause corrosion and lead to bad connections. The idea is to not overheat the terminal end, but you also don't want a cold solder joint. If it is dull then it was done too cold, it should be shiny when done correctly.

I'm terrible at soldering fittings which is another reason I crimp everything. Here is the wiring we finished up tonight in my T, all done with crimp terminals.

Don

Don

donsrods said:

There are two schools of thought on wire terminal connections. Some swear by soldering them on, and some like crimp terminals. I came out of the marine industry, and soldered ends are a no-no in boat wiring. The solder creates hard spots that vibrations can break. It is too brittle. So, I buy high quality crimp terminals and use them only.

As for soldering, you do not want acid core solder. That is for copper tubing. You want rosin core solder that is made for wiring. Acid core will cause corrosion and lead to bad connections. The idea is to not overheat the terminal end, but you also don't want a cold solder joint. If it is dull then it was done too cold, it should be shiny when done correctly.

I'm terrible at soldering fittings which is another reason I crimp everything. Here is the wiring we finished up tonight in my T, all done with crimp terminals.

Don

Don

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that looks great don! i will probably use 99% crimp on my car, these wires were too small for crimps though so i had to go this route. It works though! I think i'm going to have someone thats done this kind of stuff before look at it first. I would hate to set my car on fire with a bad connection

Hot glue is fine on circuit boards. We used it all the time when I was in the Army for ruggedizing computers and radio sets. Every connection got glued down along with any component that could possibly come loose (RAM, PCI cards, crystals, etc).

wallaka said:

Hot glue is fine on circuit boards. We used it all the time when I was in the Army for ruggedizing computers and radio sets. Every connection got glued down along with any component that could possibly come loose (RAM, PCI cards, crystals, etc).

Click to expand...

sweet, thanks for telling me that, i was really worried about it. I wasn't sure if anything could go wrong with it but i had no idea. i just used it to glue the board down and on all my soldered connections, i'm hoping it will dampen any vibrations and make it last longer as well.

Don is right about the solder joints breaking under vibration, this is acutually something i know a little about. I install police lighting equipment on new and used police cars(my shop does about 300 a year)...we DO NOT solder anything, we crimp all of our connections. But, if you have to solder you might want to use heat shrink tubing, that will help the vibration factor...hope this help a little.. Bill

Banjoman said:

Don is right about the solder joints breaking under vibration, this is acutually something i know a little about. I install police lighting equipment on new and used police cars(my shop does about 300 a year)...we DO NOT solder anything, we crimp all of our connections. But, if you have to solder you might want to use heat shrink tubing, that will help the vibration factor...hope this help a little.. Bill

Click to expand...

it does, thanks. I'm getting that the general consensus is avoid soldering if possible . I had to on this as I was dealing with a pre-made circuit board that had connections too small to use with crimps. I'll be useing high quality crimps on everything else though. I also used hot glue on all of the solder joints. I'm hoping it'll absorb the vibration and make them last, we'll see. I was finally able to do some experimenting with fiberglass the other night and will be able to make the mods needed to my vette soon to fit my new battery box, at which point i can get this all wired in. (so many projects )