I'm not the best person at soldering, but I'm having an issue. I had some old CAT5 cable (each wire had gold wire (not solid core)) and was very nice and easy to solder.
I decided to purchase some more CAT5 as it's very useful. I have a slight problem with the one I've brought. It's not solid core, but it's also not gold. It's silver and feels smooth. I'm unable to get any solder to bond with it, just runs off. I've tried using a knife to "graze" away at it, also tried some sandpaper and still doesn't bond.
Cat 5 should have copper, either solid or stranded wire. The price of copper means that some cheap (crap) cat 5 uses aluminium. It doesn't solder so easily (not at all with standard kit).
Doesn't tell you on that one, but looking at this one: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/280762281136 it says "Wire Construction: CCA - Copper Clad Aluminum (0.4mm in diameter, runs up to 150ft)"
Looks like I'll have to buy some more then, urgh wasted an evening and money
If it's copper it doesn't matter whether its solid or stranded. The main advantage of stranded is that the wire is more flexible; the surface area being exposed to the solder is greater but that's irrelevant if the joint is properly made. Solder doesn't "stick" it "alloys" into the parent metal forming an interface compound which is a mix of both.