I am looking for advice on soldering stranded, 12ga, copper wire into solder cups already filled with solder.
I have forgotten how to make it work cleanly.
The part I can do is the removal of the wire. To remove the wire I cut some PVC to expose more wire, then...
apply loads of flux
heat the wire until solder boils on the wire
move the iron to contact the cup/solder in the cup
keep heat until cup solder boils
keep tension on the wire until it releases
Now, the part that I struggle with making clean... putting the same gauge wire back in the cup. I have started with an empty cup, full cup of unflowed solder, full cup of flowed solder... and making my remaining hair grayer. Where am I going wrong?
I tried my iron from over 300c up to 380c (no display, just a knob). Any hotter and the connector plastic melts.
Tin the wire
Empty cup full of flux (or with a chunk of solder, or tinned, depending on try 1, 2 or 3)
Apply heat to tinned wire until solder shines
Apply heated wire and iron to cup until flux melts
Apply solder (with third hand) to cup/wire/iron junction
Hope the solder flows inside the cup and on the wire as I try to slide the wire into the cup before the solder hardens in the cup and on the wire... but that never works as I imagined, so I try another few times and I swear I'm never doing this again.
What am I missing now, that I did 100 times a day with Cannon plugs, when I was young and invincible? I already know I'm ugly, so that's not the problem. Leprechauns? chatGPT? (heh)
Connector material seems to be a plastic. It takes a lot of heat before melting, but it smells plastic when I burn it. Not Bakelite. Not rubber (no crimping of wires). I am not set up for crimping, which would be preferred by me, but the connectors are solder connectors.
My process is:
1 Strip and tin wire,
2 Wet iron tip and hold on back side of solder cup until solder in cup melts,
3 Insert wire into cup and quickly move iron either up or to the front of the cup in order for the iron tip to contact both cup and wire,
4 Remove Iron once wire solder is wet and has a fillet.
5 Don't let wire move until solder solidifies
Add fresh solder in step 2 or 3 if necessary
The proper way is to remove the old solder from the cup and start fresh
Yes, that would have been better than describing it, but it is an infrequent task on one piece at a time, I get these "done" but not as I want ("thought I want?")... photos will be pending next one needing the job done.
Ah... I feel this is could be it... I may have been "bigger the blob, better the job" without thinking.
Yes, I do this (I did not write it) as it seems to increase chances of spreading heat and flowing cup and wire solder.
Yes, I flood it with flux, flow the solder, invert and tap solder out. Very clean, I can see the edges of the inside of the cup.
The image in post 7 of the XT60 is "exactly" my material (not a yellow connector, but cups), but confined (adjacent comm wires).
As I read, I see my steps, equipment and material are acceptable, but my problems are in my patience and concentration on changes occurring during heating, and accepting taking "a step back" from a mistake.
Did @LarryD point out another tip which I see in the pictures?
When you do something like an XT60, put a corresponding XT60 connector on the other side. This greatly increases the chance of getting in and out without damaging the alignment.
