a soldering method i never thought of before

[solarbird]

I was out fixing a broken wire in the front stair lights, which means working with wires held in place that I have to reconnect end to end, and I realised i could do this:

…and I can’t believe I never thought of it before. It’s so good. It holds the ends in place while you’re setting up and then you touch the hot iron to the solder and it just flows together. It is amazing, how did I not think of this until today?

(I’m sure this is an old trick, it’s just one I can’t ever remember seeing myself, so I didn’t know about it. Now you’ve seen it too ^_^ )

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

Comments

[armiphlage]

Marrettes also work well (if you use the correct size).

[solarbird]

Yes, but we aren't talking about those situations, we're talking about situations where you need the kind of direct end-to-end soldered connection I'm talking about here, which happened to be true in this case, and is often true inside things like project boxes.

It's not the most common situation in the world, it just turns out that wrapping the join in solder makes everything dramatically easier when you are in this situation.

[canyonwalker]

Great technique. Now you've just got to put a heat-shrink tube over it!

[solarbird]

funny man

(but yes, obviously, you need to pre-place heatshrink further down the wire. for the outdoor low-voltage light repair, I used a combination of outdoor all-weather-grade electrical tape and heat shrink.)