Removing isolation of trafo wire

[Thoru]

Hi,

I'm trying to repair an old amp. I've to reconnect the wires from the trafo, so I stripped the isolation of. The wires still didn't want to be soldered and it appeared there was some sort of lacquer. It does melt when I heat it with the soldering iron, but it stays in place. How can I remove it so I can solder the wire?

Thanks in advance,

Remco Poelstra

[nemestra]

Hi Thoru,

Transformer wire is coated with clear enamel. This can be scraped off with a knife or better still using fine grade sandpaper. Wrap a small piece of sandpaper round the end you are trying to strip and twist. You will know it's all off by the copper colour. Then try to 'tin' the wire end - that is, coat it in solder. If the solder doesn't stick then some enamel is still there.

James

[cogsncogs]

Originaly posted by: nemestra
Transformer wire is coated with clear enamel.

It comes in many colors. Red, orange, green, purple...
Just nit-picking! Plus it gave me an excuse to play with the font color!

Wayne

[promitheus]

You could buy and use this tool for instance.
It only costs 6,10 Euro at www.reichelt.de

[promitheus]

it didn´t save my picture in the previous post.
Here it is again.

[Magura]

The way Ive seen it done by electromechanics in the field is as follows:

Burn the enamel with a lighter, then rub the residues off with fine grid sandpaper. This way you are sure its all gone, as opposed to if you just sand it off.

Magura

[pinkmouse]

Originally posted by Magura
Burn the enamel with a lighter, then rub the residues off with fine grid sandpaper. This way you are sure its all gone, as opposed to if you just sand it off.

Yup, always works for me, filthy nicotine addict that I am!

[mandat]

The best enamel remover is an ordinary acetylsalicylic acid, simply called aspirin. Put the end of a wire on aspirin tablet and heat it up with soldering iron. When the acid smell is felt use tin solder and calophony. Rubbing the wire with soldering iron removes the rest of loosy fixed enamel. Given method perfectly remove enamel from Litz wire, too.

The second (unverified) method. Heat up the end of a wire with soldering iron and subsequently dip it in methyl alcohol. The enamel layer falls off and may be removed.

[cogsncogs]

I've used the lighter technique. If you don't have fine sand paper you can use emery cloth or an emery board, fine steel wool or just your trusty pocket knife to remove the black soot. If you have one of those 100-150W soldering guns usually that will be hot enought to melt it off.
The aspirin technique looks promising (cooking up aspirin now are we?). Has anyone tried a tinning block and a very hot iron? Seems like a friend of use to do that and IIRC it worked!

Wayne

[Thoru]

Hi,

Thanks for all te replies. I used the lighter+knife method, because that's what I had available here. Works great. Amp is working again!

Thanks again,

Remco Poelstra