Ron Rogers wrote: > Arild, > Until your email, I had thought that crimp-only was the new and better way. > Now I know better. The only improvement that I really like is the adhesive, > heat shrink connectors which are both water resistant and provide strain > relief. > > Ron REPLY Ron you probably remember the old military Cannon brand connectors with soldered connections. In aircraft and vehicular applications with lots of movement, these soldered connections sometimes failed due to vibration. The failure always happened at the point where the solder wicking up into the strands formed a hard point. From this we got the MIL-SPEC standard of requiring all connections to be crimped since crimped connections demonstrated better resistance to vibration fatigue. You probably already knew thisi from your comm days in the military. When I worked for the government contractor company we had to have calibrated crimping tools. Every tool, meter and instrument had its own calibration record and that was part of my job to maintain these records. We did have soldered circuit board connections. But wiring attached to the boards had to go through a push on connector that was crimped. The recptacle was soldered to the board. MIL-SPEC crimps are in fact gas tight and as such can resist corrosion from salt laden air. On the other hand your typical crimp connection made with a plier type tool is not and may not be tight enough to prevent salt air or moisture from starting corrosion inside the crimp. This is where heat activated adhesive liners inside the shrink tube is superior. It effectively seals of the wires from contact with salt and moisture. Ratchet type crimpers come close provided you use matching tool dies and brand name crimp lugs.
Soldered connections require skill and experience. Factory managers don't like having to pay for skilled labor. A crimp machine can be operated by almost anyone at far less cost. Hence crimping became a standard that everybody subscribed to, Perfect soldered connections is a real art. Perhaps almost a lost art at this time. cheers Arild _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
