Re: [HCDX] Repairing the beverage
My Beverages run through a thick, wooded area and take a beating during the winter months. Something you may want to consider using for soldering spliced wire, while a few hundred feet from an electrical outlet, is Radio Shack low-heat tape solder. I found it heats up and bonds quite well with just an ordinary butane lighter, even during winter. I started using tape solder after wasting my money on a battery operated ColdHeat soldering iron for use outside the home. The thing doesn't heat up for beans under optimum indoor conditions. Scott From: Jim Barrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [HCDX] Repairing the beverage To: Patrick Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1; reply-type=original Patrick, If you need to solder wire in cold weather, use a propane torch. A torch is best suited to uninsulated stranded copper wire, as the heat will cause the insulation on typical zip cord extension wire to melt back on either side of the spice - but it will deliver enough heat to make a perfect solder joint in just seconds - even if the ambient temps are quite cold. Use rather heavy gauge rosin-core solder, and set the flame as low as possible. It's best to do it when the winds are calm. I constructed a 300-foot horizontal loop that had six spices - all of which were soldered in this fashion. It has held up perfectly through 4 northeastern winters. Jim Barrett - Original Message - From: Patrick Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2008 15:00 Subject: [HCDX] Repairing the beverage Greetngs, After our storms this Winter, especially the big one in early December, the Eastern beverage got busted up and it took me several weeks to finally get it back up. It was too cold and wet to solder the splices so I just twisted the splices and taped then up for the time being. I got out yesterday and soldered two splices, as we were up into the 50s F, so my little butane soldering pencil worked okey, but there was a wind, so keeping it lit was not always easy. I was thinking of buying another 250 feet of outdoor extention cord to give me 500 feet total. With that, I would have enough to reach the other splices that aren't soldered on the beverage. I have a Radio Shack soldering gun (100/140 watts). Would the soldering gun work running it through that much extention cord? If so, would it harm the transformer in the gun? I fiqure a A/C soldering pencil would not be harmed as there is no tranformer, but I don't have A/C soldering pencil that has much wattage. The gun would work better. With a pencil, if the voltage dropped too low the pencil would not get hot enough, but with the transforer in the gun, I have no clue. Does anyone know? If running 500 feet of extention cord would work, I will go buy another 250 feet. I have run the soldering gun through 200 feet of cord and that worked ok. I also have a deep cycle 12V battery I could use with an 120v inverter, but thing weighs 70 pounds and not that easy to carry. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. 73, Patrick Patrick Martin KAVT Reception Manager Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ---[Start Commercial]- Order your WRTH 2008: http://www.hard-core-dx.com/redirect2.php?id=wrth2008 ---[End Commercial]--- Hard-Core-DX mailing list Hard-Core-DX@hard-core-dx.com http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx http://www.hard-core-dx.com/ ___ THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/dsl.html
Re: [HCDX] Repairing the beverage
Jim Barrett wrote: If you need to solder wire in cold weather, use a propane torch. A torch is best suited to uninsulated stranded copper wire, as the heat will cause the insulation on typical zip cord extension wire to melt back on either side of the spice - but it will deliver enough heat to make a perfect solder joint in just seconds - even if the ambient temps are quite cold. Use rather heavy gauge rosin-core solder, and set the flame as low as possible. It's best to do it when the winds are calm. And another trick is to get one of those old-style really heavy soldering irons. Sometimes these are still available from hardware stores, and usually draw about 250 watts or more in power. These soldering irons have a wide heavy copper tip on them. You can use the propane torch to heat the tip, leaving the heat on long enough to get the entire body of the iron hot, and then use the iron to solder the wire. No flames, and generally won't melt insulation too bad. There are soldering tips for propane torches, though I haven't seen these lately. They are copper tips with holes for the flame a ways back from the tip. Rick Kunath ---[Start Commercial]- Order your WRTH 2008: http://www.hard-core-dx.com/redirect2.php?id=wrth2008 ---[End Commercial]--- Hard-Core-DX mailing list Hard-Core-DX@hard-core-dx.com http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx http://www.hard-core-dx.com/ ___ THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/dsl.html
[HCDX] Repairing the beverage
Greetngs, After our storms this Winter, especially the big one in early December, the Eastern beverage got busted up and it took me several weeks to finally get it back up. It was too cold and wet to solder the splices so I just twisted the splices and taped then up for the time being. I got out yesterday and soldered two splices, as we were up into the 50s F, so my little butane soldering pencil worked okey, but there was a wind, so keeping it lit was not always easy. I was thinking of buying another 250 feet of outdoor extention cord to give me 500 feet total. With that, I would have enough to reach the other splices that aren't soldered on the beverage. I have a Radio Shack soldering gun (100/140 watts). Would the soldering gun work running it through that much extention cord? If so, would it harm the transformer in the gun? I fiqure a A/C soldering pencil would not be harmed as there is no tranformer, but I don't have A/C soldering pencil that has much wattage. The gun would work better. With a pencil, if the voltage dropped too low the pencil would not get hot enough, but with the transforer in the gun, I have no clue. Does anyone know? If running 500 feet of extention cord would work, I will go buy another 250 feet. I have run the soldering gun through 200 feet of cord and that worked ok. I also have a deep cycle 12V battery I could use with an 120v inverter, but thing weighs 70 pounds and not that easy to carry. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. 73, Patrick Patrick Martin KAVT Reception Manager ---[Start Commercial]- Order your WRTH 2008: http://www.hard-core-dx.com/redirect2.php?id=wrth2008 ---[End Commercial]--- Hard-Core-DX mailing list Hard-Core-DX@hard-core-dx.com http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx http://www.hard-core-dx.com/ ___ THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/dsl.html
Re: [HCDX] Repairing the beverage
Patrick, If you need to solder wire in cold weather, use a propane torch. A torch is best suited to uninsulated stranded copper wire, as the heat will cause the insulation on typical zip cord extension wire to melt back on either side of the spice - but it will deliver enough heat to make a perfect solder joint in just seconds - even if the ambient temps are quite cold. Use rather heavy gauge rosin-core solder, and set the flame as low as possible. It's best to do it when the winds are calm. I constructed a 300-foot horizontal loop that had six spices - all of which were soldered in this fashion. It has held up perfectly through 4 northeastern winters. Jim Barrett - Original Message - From: Patrick Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2008 15:00 Subject: [HCDX] Repairing the beverage Greetngs, After our storms this Winter, especially the big one in early December, the Eastern beverage got busted up and it took me several weeks to finally get it back up. It was too cold and wet to solder the splices so I just twisted the splices and taped then up for the time being. I got out yesterday and soldered two splices, as we were up into the 50s F, so my little butane soldering pencil worked okey, but there was a wind, so keeping it lit was not always easy. I was thinking of buying another 250 feet of outdoor extention cord to give me 500 feet total. With that, I would have enough to reach the other splices that aren't soldered on the beverage. I have a Radio Shack soldering gun (100/140 watts). Would the soldering gun work running it through that much extention cord? If so, would it harm the transformer in the gun? I fiqure a A/C soldering pencil would not be harmed as there is no tranformer, but I don't have A/C soldering pencil that has much wattage. The gun would work better. With a pencil, if the voltage dropped too low the pencil would not get hot enough, but with the transforer in the gun, I have no clue. Does anyone know? If running 500 feet of extention cord would work, I will go buy another 250 feet. I have run the soldering gun through 200 feet of cord and that worked ok. I also have a deep cycle 12V battery I could use with an 120v inverter, but thing weighs 70 pounds and not that easy to carry. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. 73, Patrick Patrick Martin KAVT Reception Manager ---[Start Commercial]- Order your WRTH 2008: http://www.hard-core-dx.com/redirect2.php?id=wrth2008 ---[End Commercial]--- Hard-Core-DX mailing list Hard-Core-DX@hard-core-dx.com http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx http://www.hard-core-dx.com/ ___ THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/dsl.html ---[Start Commercial]- Order your WRTH 2008: http://www.hard-core-dx.com/redirect2.php?id=wrth2008 ---[End Commercial]--- Hard-Core-DX mailing list Hard-Core-DX@hard-core-dx.com http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx http://www.hard-core-dx.com/ ___ THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/dsl.html
