On 11/13/20 10:38 PM, Bruce Layne wrote:
*PRO TIP #1 -* A hotter iron is better for soldering pins in connectors
with low melting point plastic. It sounds counter intuitive, but the
goal is to get in and out quickly. You want to dump heat into the pin
as quickly as possible, melt the solder, and then stop heating the pin.
A lower temperature iron will cause the pin to heat more slowly,
allowing more heat to transfer to the surrounding plastic.
*PRO TIP #2 -* Plug the connector into a mating connector before
soldering. The heat traveling down the pin will flow into the socket in
the mating connector instead of the surrounding plastic, and even if the
plastic softens, the mating connector will keep the pins properly
aligned until the plastic is a solid again.
I've done both of those things - the problem is even if you can 'get away with
it',
when connectors are made of the wrong plastic, even if when they don't fall
apart
- things can move slightly - not enough to see, but enough to effect
reliability.
I throw cheap parts in the trash can so I don't end up spending a night tracking
down some intermittent problem.
With good connectors, you can hold a soldering iron on the plastic for a full
5-sec and you won't have a dent. (There was a time when the parts kept
getting better AND cheaper - today, it is a race to the bottom, where they
sell junk that looks like a real part.)
Important to use the best connectors, I spent a lot of time fixing, diagnosing
electronics when I wasn't doing design. If something isn't working, I always
look at the connectors first. Especially if the problem is intermittent.
Intermittent
failures take the most time to fix. The AMP/Tyco/TE connectors price can be 10X
more,
but cheap connectors can be extremely expensive to use.
On 11/13/20 10:54 PM, Karl Schmidt wrote:
Beware of the cheap solder-cup connectors they are selling on amazon and
other places. They are made out of the wrong kind of plastic and even
with
a temperature controlled iron and a quick hand, the pins can shift.
If a quick jab with the iron leaves a dent - throw them out.
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The government provides the illusion of a k-12 education - at our expense. kps
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