I am very new to soldering. I'm going to be soldering together a button matrix. the wire lengths shouldnt be more than about a foot and a half. I have acquired a thin solid wire without shielding that i would like to solder to my buttons. I am not sure if the wire is aluminum or some sort of steel. my unknown wire may or may not be intended for crafts.
this might be a sill question but does it matter what kind of metals are soldered together ?
are all metals suitable conductors for this sort of thing?
taterking:
I am very new to soldering. I'm going to be soldering together a button matrix. the wire lengths shouldnt be more than about a foot and a half. I have acquired a thin solid wire without shielding that i would like to solder to my buttons. I am not sure if the wire is aluminum or some sort of steel. my unknown wire may or may not be intended for crafts.
this might be a sill question but does it matter what kind of metals are soldered together ?
are all metals suitable conductors for this sort of thing?
If you are just learning about soldering, please just use wire that is known to be COPPER!!!! And use a flux with your solder. The flux will clean the copper surface and protect the surface from oxygen while the solder is molten.
Are you using leaded solder or lead-free solder? Both can be used, but leaded solder known as 63/37 is best to begin with.
You also need to be concerned with the soldering iron you are using. Both size of tip and wattage.
You did not tell us if your wire was bare or insulated. Use insulated and strip a bit of insulation off before making the connection.
Have you studied the proper way to connect the wire to your switch terminals?
taterking:
I am very new to soldering. I'm going to be soldering together a button matrix. the wire lengths shouldn't be more than about a foot and a half. I have acquired a thin solid wire without shielding that i would like to solder to my buttons. I am not sure if the wire is aluminium or some sort of steel. my unknown wire may or may not be intended for crafts.
this might be a sill question but does it matter what kind of metals are soldered together ?
are all metals suitable conductors for this sort of thing?
Yes, it matters.
Copper is the universal metal for electrical wires and is very easy to solder. Copper is used because it has low electrical resistance and is easy to work with. Copper is often tinned, which gives it a silver appearance instead of the usual reddish brown of copper. If you are unsure scrape it with a knife or cut it and look at the end. Also try with a magnet, copper does not stick to a magnet.
Aluminium is used in special circumstances, for example, the high voltage cables that distribute electricity around the country consist of an steel core surrounded by aluminium conductors. Aluminium is very difficult to solder without specialist equipment.
Steel wire has high resistance and can be used for high power resistors or for heaters. Electric heaters are basically some form of steel wire. You can solder steel with ordinary soldering equipment but it's not as easy as soldering copper and the joint is more likely to break.
bare copper
tin-plated copper (aka "tinned copper wire"),
CCA ("copper coated aluminium) - avoid this if you possibly can, its awful.
You can solder copper and tinned copper wire easily. Unless its dirty/oxidized.
Other solderable metals are brass, tin, some iron and steel (with the right coating), silver, gold.
Bare aluminium cannot be soldered at all.
Of course whatever wire you use should be insulated, and you'll need some way to strip the insulation
cleanly from the ends before soldering (I use side cutters for this).
And you absolutely must not use plumbers solder or flux (extremely corrosive), only electrical solder with rosin core, and rosin flux.