soldering binding posts and copper litz wire

[Pjotr]

Hi,

Putting the wire in a flame is not a good idea. It makes the copper brittle with the risk of broken wires just after the tinned end. To prevent this further you can use some shrink tubing after tinning as a strain relief.

In fact it is much easier but takes some patience. Use a 100W soldering iron well heated up and generous amounts of flux cored solder. At the end of the wire there is some bare copper (at where it is cut). If you start tinning this small end of blank copper the tin creeps slowly under the enamel: Just keep the end in a sufficient big solder blob on the soldering iron for a while. Some extra flux/cored solder may help, I use no clean rework flux paste for PCB’s for it when necessary.

Tin wire by wire this way and remove the burned enamel, you can use a cloth fore it with some alcohol. Then twist the wires and there you are. Works for most (poly)urethane enamels, only not for high temperature enamels like polyimide.

The above works like a poor mans solder pot. At work I have a nice Weller solder pot, but rarely use it. Heating the thing up takes more time

[Face]

If one to pick up a solder pot for tinning litz wire, what temperature would be recommended?

[jleaman]

IF it is a decent gauge of wire, you could use sand paper i use 220grit.

Take the piece of wire you are planning on sanding and put electrical tape around the spot where you don't want to sand, ie use the tape as a guide, so you don't sand to much, then when done, remove tape, I usually only sand 1/4" on the ends, then trim the unwanted length, stuff you don't need off.

[rdf]

Reasonable gauge Litz is easy to solder, been doing it for decades without special tools or techniques. A 60 watt iron is good, if I'm too lazy to fire it up a regular one does the trick.

Snip the end of the wire clean with side cutters. Set the iron down and put a blob of solder on the tip. Hold the clean end cut in the blob with one hand and feed a constant small stream of solder into the blob with another. The Litz coating at the solder should quickly start burning off, when it does start feeding the Litz through the solder pool, tinning as much end as you require. Spinning the wire to get a solder coat started contains the heat and makes quick work of the job.

The last time I used this method was last night. The main downside is if the iron temp is too low the coating can melt a bit up the wire.

[jleaman]

Originally Posted by rdf

Reasonable gauge Litz is easy to solder, been doing it for decades without special tools or techniques. A 60 watt iron is good, if I'm too lazy to fire it up a regular one does the trick.

Snip the end of the wire clean with side cutters. Set the iron down and put a blob of solder on the tip. Hold the clean end cut in the blob with one hand and feed a constant small stream of solder into the blob with another. The Litz coating at the solder should quickly start burning off, when it does start feeding the Litz through the solder pool, tinning as much end as you require. Spinning the wire to get a solder coat started contains the heat and makes quick work of the job.

The last time I used this method was last night. The main downside is if the iron temp is too low the coating can melt a bit up the wire.

Have done this also.