Soldering

[kaiser]

i'm not new to soldering at all, but lately i've been having trouble.

ever try to solder 10 gauge wire to a deans connector? it's a tough job, almost too tough for my new 40w iron.

i think it may be time for an upgrade (i just bought the 40watt! )

anyone else having a hard time with batteries that come with 10 gauge wire ? (like turnigy)

i always heat and tin both surfaces, i use the "helping hands" (little tool with arms and aligator clips to hold stuff together), i need to keep my iron on theses things so long. it's a real chore now.

[tamiya monkey]

10 gauge wire a pain to solder to anything, i fitted some turnigy lipo's with ec3 connectors the other day for a friend, what a pain that was, i use a 60w gas iron and it works well for most things.

[kaiser]

i tried my neighbors brand new 50w with a slightly larger tip, it worked fine.

i guess i'll need to pick one up.

[Swarm]

Have you tried heating the wire from underneath where you want to solder get it nice and hot and apply solder.

Copper wire can be a pain to solder as the solder slids off try flux, apply the flux with a cotton bud and tin all the wires you want to solder then its just a matter of putting the wires on top of each other and applying heat it should (with tinning) work almost immediatly.

[mr. Rallying]

I have a 100W iron. Heats what I need to solder quick. It's not that big eigther.

[Grubby]

How about a gas powered soldering iron you fill it with ciggy lighter gas, you can vary the heat, you don't have to plug it in, mine has 4 differerent size tips from 1mm to 4mm & you can remove the tips to use it as a blow torch i use mine for everything.

[kaiser]

thanks for the advice gents, i think i'm all set.

my tip was less then perfect and the wattage is just a little too low for 10gauge wire.

i'll be picking up a new iron in the future.

[WillyChang]

Might not be just the wattage. If there's not enough heat mass in the element to maintain temp when the target sucks heat away, everything gets too cold to work. Large irons usually have a big heat mass that stores enough heat.

If your iron has replaceable tip see if they sell one shaped like a mallet head.

[PaPeRo]

Your problem is that you're still using Deans...lol...it's not an iron wattage problem.

In fact I have zero problem soldering 10 AWG wire onto 4mm bullets with a 25W Hakko iron.

[smegs]

I use one of these works awesome. and its portable.

[mike_o]

I use a std 40 watt (or is it 50?) Weller soldering iron, in which I put a medium size tip and I set the temp at 320'C. As described above, heat from below, while applying solder. I use this for Deans connectors with no problems: First I fixate the connectors in a Bacho wrench, then apply a small solder bump to each of the connector pins, the I solder one of the wires and immidiately (while it's hot), I solder it to the connector. (...then I rush off to dip my fingers in cold water...)