Making your own Battery Cables, Crimp? Solder? Both? (1 Viewer)

[danthman114]

I did both. I crimped then soldered. cables can come out of a crimp...

 

[NLXTACY]

I only crimp battery cables

 

[Greg_B]

I used this info to get going a few years back...Making Your Own Battery Cables...and did get the FTZ crimpers.

hth's
gb

 

[woodsman 44]

I make all my own cables and crimp only no solder...

 

[george_tlc]

Cables do NOT come out of a crimp if:

a) the correct lug is used for the specified wire gauge
b) the correct crimper is used and cycles to the full crimped position.

As has been mentioned many times on this forum, soldering wires to lugs is not desirable and is much more problematic than a correctly made crimp. Of course this is mud where some folk will spend a fortune on a factory authentic 8 track player but won't spend $ on quality tools

Just my 2c added to this long dead & resurrected thread...

cheers,
george.

 

[cruiserdan]

Of course this is mud where some folk will spend a fortune on a factory authentic 8 track player but won't spend $ on quality tools
cheers,
george.

This is prime sig ling territory.......

 

[maxamillion2345]

I crimp and solder.

 

[Cruzerman]

cables can come out of a crimp...

No way can a properly crimped cable come out of a crimp. However, I've seen cables get hot enough to melt the solder. Crimp / mechanical connection is 100% necessary and the only thing you need.

 

[NLXTACY]

No way can a properly crimped cable come out of a crimp. However, I've seen cables get hot enough to melt the solder. Crimp / mechanical connection is 100% necessary and the only thing you need.

I didn’t really think that happened until I had a customer come to visit and he was trying to trace an electrical issue. I didn’t want to get involved but said I look it over for something obvious. Well I found it right away. Wire was arcing because it was fused near the load not the battery and there was a tiny blob of solder on the panel under it. But luckily he used course wire strand so the wire didn’t just fall out completely. Scary stuff.

 

[Bambusiero]

About solder - if you are determined to solder, and you want to use "silver solder" because it's all better and stuff...
Just saying "silver solder" by itself doesn't really define the product well.
Solders are alloys and there are a lot of different metals that can be in there.
"silver solder" just means it has some (highly variable) silver content.
Might be a tiny bit, might be an appreciable percent.
Might still have lead, might not.

There are probably many good ones, that can give good results, once you have the right flux and heat, but they're all different.

I've used this one, and had really good results:
Harris STAY-BRITE 8 : just 2 constituents: Sn-94%, Ag-6% (food safe, if you care)
It's expensive - $56 for 1lb roll. This is at the high end of silver content for solder.
Harris STAY-CLEAN liquid flux - works great. Steel, stainless, mixed metals.
(But NOT for wiring because it's a fairly strong acid and it would get up in the strands. You need to wash it off.)
Harris STAY-CLEAN past flux - grease based stuff meant for plumbing & HVAC. Works OK, but doesn't have the mojo of the acid stuff.

They make a similar but cheaper version called just STAY-BRITE for you low rent types who only want to pay for 4% Ag

BUT - Don't solder da crimp - de-wimp da crimp.