Heat Shrink Self-Solder Butt Splice Connectors

[Wathen1955]

Need to get a few of these. :seasix:

https://youtu.be/7Wh5gM8GM70

[Antfarmer2]

:seasix::cert::seasix:

[MrPeabody]

In the late 70s I worked for Raychem, the company that invented heat-shrinkable tubing.

[BADRACR1]

We use those for some repairs out in the shop. Work pretty good.

[Sea Six]

Very cool.

[mrvette]

I seen them tricks before, but being an old ET from over 1/2 a century ago, just WHAT and HOW does that work,?? I have always used TV/Radio/Electronic solder with flux that allowed the metals to anneal and essentially form one solid connection, BUT that required about 600f heat and my iron rated at 800f tip temp.....witch is FAR above the melting point of any plastic I ever heard of.....

Can someone esplain just specifically how this works???

:issues:

[86RAG]

Pretty good discussion about them over here: https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/heat-shrink-and-solder-wire-connectors.1126322/#post-12788043.

Biggest complaint was no mechanical connection, but people that use them seem to be happy with them. :yesnod:

[86RAG]

I seen them tricks before, but being an old ET from over 1/2 a century ago, just WHAT and HOW does that work,?? I have always used TV/Radio/Electronic solder with flux that allowed the metals to anneal and essentially form one solid connection, BUT that required about 600f heat and my iron rated at 800f tip temp.....witch is FAR above the melting point of any plastic I ever heard of.....

Can someone esplain just specifically how this works???

:issues:

It's a low temp solder ring inside the heat shrink tube. Melts with a heat gun. :cert:

[VatorMan]

We use those for some repairs out in the shop. Work pretty good.

Yep. Been using them for years.

[VITE1]

This looks great!!

[mrvette]

It's a low temp solder ring inside the heat shrink tube. Melts with a heat gun. :cert:

What METAL will melt and anneal to the copper at temps less than 600F.....


never heard of any metal melting at the temps plastic will survive at....much less anneal....

so just what is that lo temp 'solder' composed of??

:dance:

[mrvette]

Pretty good discussion about them over here: https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/heat-shrink-and-solder-wire-connectors.1126322/#post-12788043.

Biggest complaint was no mechanical connection, but people that use them seem to be happy with them. :yesnod:

After Rat Shack folded, I gave up on shrink wrap and just using black electrical tape and then secure with a small tie wrap over the soldered joint....I typically twist the wires together, enough to hold them while I solder them anyway....

:issues:

[86RAG]

What METAL will melt and anneal to the copper at temps less than 600F.....


never heard of any metal melting at the temps plastic will survive at....much less anneal....

so just what is that lo temp 'solder' composed of??

:dance:

Not sure what it is, maybe something like this?
https://www.amazon.com/Melting-Point-Alloy-Fields-Metal/dp/B001QUXA8M

[mrvette]

Not sure what it is, maybe something like this?
https://www.amazon.com/Melting-Point-Alloy-Fields-Metal/dp/B001QUXA8M

I never knew of any metal melting at less than lead solder...

so it makes me wonder about corrosion, but with that jacket around it, I don't suppose it would matter.....

interesting.....

:kimblair:

[Rob]

aerovette could use these for his master skillz :rofl:

[Cybercowboy]

A place I worked at in the 80's and early 90's was a military contractor primarily making electronic sub-assemblies and all sorts of wiring/cabling like harnesses for jet fighters, Space Shuttle, nuclear subs, you get the idea. We used these things on quite a few cables, not typically the most high-end ones but quite a few. I learned that teflon insulation is good, silver-coated copper stranded wire is very good, shielded twisted pair is good, and all solder joints must be inspected and electrical tested. Finished cables and assemblies were all tested for continuity and high-voltage leakage, sometimes put on a shaker table, sometimes under water.

I kinda took for granted all the access I had to cool stuff and when I left I found out that gathering together a nicely stocked collection of goodies like that doesn't come cheap.

[Cybercowboy]

I never knew of any metal melting at less than lead solder...

so it makes me wonder about corrosion, but with that jacket around it, I don't suppose it would matter.....

interesting.....

:kimblair:

They have their applications. We had some versions of these that also had some sticky stuff inside the sleeve that would make it a water proof connection all in one go. Most of the typical uses for these were for pigtails. Imagine you want to terminate the shielding of several cables to a common ground point. You'd strip the shield to expose about a 1/4" of shield braid, put one of these on the cable over the bare shield and also a 18 gauge wire (for instance) and melt the thing, and instant pigtail. IIRC you could order these special for just that very purpose - pigtail included - and it made for a very nice shield termination. Also you had to use the concentrator tips on the heat guns to melt these guys, IIRC the temps were similar to what we used in normal soldering - it was real solder, not something low-temp.

[Aerovette]

http://www.indium.com/blog/a-guide-to-low-temperature-solder-alloys.php

[Antfarmer2]

I never knew of any metal melting at less than lead solder...

so it makes me wonder about corrosion, but with that jacket around it, I don't suppose it would matter.....

interesting.....

:kimblair:

Doesn't mercury melt at about -40? :seasix::cert::seasix:

[Rob]

Doesn't mercury melt at about -40? :seasix::cert::seasix:



Yes. Very close because it freezes somewhere close to -40

[Cybercowboy]

Yes. Very close because it freezes somewhere close to -40

Gallium melts at body temperature. It can be solid at room temp, you pick it up, it melts in your palm.

Almagams of mercury, gallium, and other such metals can be created to pretty much melt wherever you want them to. They aren't really all that useful really, but there you go. However, remember those fillings you got back in the day, the mercury amalgam black/silver things? That was mercury mixed with tin and perhaps a little something else too. The mercury was safely bound up in the amalgam and it had the interesting property that when first mixed it was pliable but would then set up as hard as a rock in a day or so.

[StaticCling]

Oh wow, that is pretty cool. I've used crimp style ring terminals with included heat shrink, but I like this idea. :seasix:

[Cybercowboy]

Oh wow, that is pretty cool. I've used crimp style ring terminals with included heat shrink, but I like this idea. :seasix:

We called them solder sleeves in the mil-spec cable world. They are great. Mil-spec ones have inspection bands that change color when the solder has been heated to the correct temperature, among other nice features. But you'd never ever use them in a mil-spec application like shown in this video. Splices were done other ways but not like this.

[Wathen1955]

Amazon has them (no surprise).
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_3?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=nte+butt+connectors+solder&sprefix=NTE%2Caps%2C243&crid=3IEH21PP491CS

[BADRACR1]

They ain't cheap. Ours are around $8 a pop.

[Sea Six]

Do auto parts stores carry them? Hardware stores?

[RedLS1GTO]

In the late 70s I worked for Raychem, the company that invented heat-shrinkable tubing.

We use these made by Raychem all the time at work (Aerospace applications that see tens of thousands of Gs). I also use them in the race car. They survive some pretty damn harsh environments. Raychem is the only brand I would buy. I wouldn't recommend buying any cheap ones. You'll end up with junk solder joints, blowouts, etc.

[Cybercowboy]

We use these made by Raychem all the time at work (Aerospace applications that see tens of thousands of Gs). I also use them in the race car. They survive some pretty damn harsh environments. Raychem is the only brand I would buy. I wouldn't recommend buying any cheap ones. You'll end up with junk solder joints, blowouts, etc.

That's what we used back then, Raychem. They also made most if not all of the heat-shrink tubing we used back then. One of my first jobs there back in the early 80's, while still going to college, was programming a Commodore 64 to print labels using a daisy wheel printer onto heat shrink tubing that were arranged on spools and had a special platen provided for a very specific daisy wheel printer. They used that stupid program for about 10 years, and one day I saw a gal using it and was appalled because it was so primitive. She had to type the label data into DATA statements at the end of the program, which was Commodore's version of BASIC. I ported it over to QBasic so it could run on an IBM PC and had proper data entry/storage.

[MrPeabody]

We use these made by Raychem all the time at work (Aerospace applications that see tens of thousands of Gs). I also use them in the race car. They survive some pretty damn harsh environments. Raychem is the only brand I would buy. I wouldn't recommend buying any cheap ones. You'll end up with junk solder joints, blowouts, etc.

I worked in their on-site printing facility, so I wasn't directly involved in manufacturing. At the employee orientation after I was hired, they said whenever you see an airplane flying overhead, there are Raychem products on board, whenever you make a phone call you are using Raychem products and everywhere on the Alaska pipeline where two things join together it's done by a Raychem product. That pipeline was a huge boost to that company.


It was a good place to work, but not much room for advancement for me so I left there after a few years to manage a print shop in Palo Alto for some investors.

[Datawiz]

Yep. Been using them for years.

We used those heavily in GWiz's solar go-kart days. :yesnod: