Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2012 23:31:48 -0400
Reply-To: David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Subject: Re: Vanagon Syndrome Fix: 10 Volt Capacitor OK?
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mail.com>
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At 09:00 PM 6/12/2012, neil n wrote:
>I wrote:
>
> > ...... it might be best to melt off a little wire casing to get access
>to the OEM wires.
Umm...would you care to try that one, Neil, let us know how it turns
out? Some extra-strong liquid flux might help -- or not. The solder
is going to wet (only) bright shiny copper or tin with no oxide or
nonmetallics on it, and if it doesn't wet the joint you don't have a
solder joint.* Flux will help with metallic oxides, it's there to
deal with the oxides formed during heating. Additional liquid flux
*may* help with a joint that's not quite as clean as it should
be. But there's not much that will let you solder to vinyl melted in
amongst the strands of your wire and burning from the soldering heat.
*You can tell wetting from the angle of contact, just as with water
or mercury. If it's below 90* you have wetted the surface; if above, not.
>with a soldering iron.
And how you like cleaning the iron tip after getting it all gunked up
and before you solder? A tip-cleaning block, your regular soldering
sponge, a bunch of solder and a few minutes of melting it into the
block, wiping it on the sponge, seeing if it wets nicely with
rosin-core solder, dipping it in flux and letting it sit in little
pools of hot solder on the bench, wiping on the sponge, seeing if it
will wet, scrubbing into the block, wiping on the sponge, seeing if
it will wet, rinse and repeat should take care of it. The
tip-cleaning block makes it go faster. Most techs after they do that
a few times decide it's a lot easier to keep the tip clean, so they
leave it with a drop of solder on it, and wipe it off with the
barely-damp sponge just before making a joint. And cuss when the
shiny part hits a wire.
'Cause a tip that isn't shiny and bright won't transfer heat well, or
not at some angles; and you have to get that heat into the joint
quickly so other things don't get overheated (possibly including your
fingers) and so that the solder you're applying to the other side of
the joint will melt and fill the joint. You've got to have a bit of
fresh solder and flux on the tip to wet the work and transfer heat,
but only that. The solder that makes up the joint has to be heated
by the joint itself, not directly by the iron.
Personally I'd suggest a sharp knife raised up at about 30* from the
plane of the wire, and a delicate touch. Once you hit wire, slide
along it for a bit then exit at a similar angle. Or if circumstances
permit you could bend the wire over your finger and make light cuts
flat across the top until you find the metal. Should work, though
I've never done it. The first cut is the hardest because you're
cutting blind. The small blade on my Swiss Army knife has always
done well, got the right combination of blade and grip size for me.*
*And of course every time I've thought "my finger's in way of the
blade when it slips, but I'll be careful and it won't slip" five
seconds later I've been wiping up blood. That's about three or four
times in the fifty years since I nearly took the end off my finger
cutting leather with my dad's Ka-Bar (sailor knife, not the fighting
one) and decided that his motto "figure out where the blade will go
when it slips and don't be there" was one worth living by. The ones
since have only been tiny, because even when I've cut corners with
that rule they've been very small corners. But I've gotten nailed
every single time...maybe the Old Man is still trying to tell me
something. Another of his, more or less, was "Sharp knives will cut
you; dull knives will maim you."
Yours,
David
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