Hello Guys,
I've got a 100x 48 AWG litz wire for my new PSU but I can't peel the strands without damaging them. Manual peeling is impossible, burning off just burns the enamel and melts the strands together.
I tried to put solder on the burned enamel hoping that it will flow underneath, didn't work. I also tried paint remover, acetone, white spirit, naphtha, also failed.
What do you guys suggest me to do?
Many thanks for the advices
I've got a 100x 48 AWG litz wire for my new PSU but I can't peel the strands without damaging them. Manual peeling is impossible, burning off just burns the enamel and melts the strands together.
I tried to put solder on the burned enamel hoping that it will flow underneath, didn't work. I also tried paint remover, acetone, white spirit, naphtha, also failed.
What do you guys suggest me to do?
Many thanks for the advices
You need to spend a few quid and get a proper solder pot if you want to properly deal with litz wire. My preference is for the Hexacon mini pot. 800 degrees. Use bar solder to fill the pot. Not flux core wire solder.
You need to scrape the oxide layer and dross off the top of the pot each time you use it. I use a steel paperclip straightened out with about a 7mm "L" on one end.
Wet the litz wire with some liquid flux. Dip it into the solder slowly and keep it moving slowly in a circle and then draw it out. This leaves a "snail trail" of residue behind the wire so when you pull the wire out, it doesn't cling to the tinned end.
If you have any questions, let me know.
se
You need to scrape the oxide layer and dross off the top of the pot each time you use it. I use a steel paperclip straightened out with about a 7mm "L" on one end.
Wet the litz wire with some liquid flux. Dip it into the solder slowly and keep it moving slowly in a circle and then draw it out. This leaves a "snail trail" of residue behind the wire so when you pull the wire out, it doesn't cling to the tinned end.
If you have any questions, let me know.
se
I use a Dremel with a stainless steel wire wheel attachment, about half speed. Simply untwist and fan out the strands and apply the Dremel, with the wheel rotating TOWARD the ends of the wire, moving from next to the insulation to the end of the strands. Turn the wire over a few times and repeat and it's stripped clean as a whistle.
Stop when the wire is stripped (you can see the color change as the enamel is removed); overdoing it will scrape away your wire!
I've used litz on the return wires for umbilicals and power supplies, and in my speakers.
Stop when the wire is stripped (you can see the color change as the enamel is removed); overdoing it will scrape away your wire!
I've used litz on the return wires for umbilicals and power supplies, and in my speakers.
Don't worry about using leaded solder. That's all I ever use and all I will ever use (Kester 63/37 Ultrapure bar solder).
I'm just using the liquid flux for cable making so I just use a simple rosin flux from MG Chemicals. I'm afraid I don't have any recommendations for surface mount work.
se
But by the same token, it won't hurt to use it. And in his case, it is a very flexible wire.
se
The litz wire he's using is made up of 100 strands of 48 gauge wire. 48 gauge wire is finer than a human hair. Taking a Dremel wire wheel to it would just destroy it.
se
Yeah, I haven't gone that thin. Probably too thin for a Dremel, although I have stripped 17.5 total gauge Cardas litz wire that way without any issues, and it has a lot of fine strands...not sure what gauge those are, though.
.
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I know the wire you're talking about and if memory serves, I don't think Cardas is using anything finer than about 30 gauge in it.
When you get down to 48 gauge, you can barely even see a single strand of it it's so fine. I've used 46 and am currently using 44 and even that's a bit hard to see.
But even if you're not using a litz wire, a solder pot is a good idea as you want to pre-tin your wire before soldering it anyway. And with litz wire, you can kill two birds with one stone.
se
I wrap a few turns of solder around the Dremel'd end of the wire and touch the soldering iron to it - it sucks it right in while staying tight together. Unconventional, perhaps, but it works. It gets to be a lot of work with big projects, though - a solder pot is definitely on my Christmas list...
Indeed. I can easily break the strands with a careless move, I wouldn't even dare to think of dremel on the same day.
On the other hand I'd try out Magz's dremel technique in other projects with thicker magnet wires, just to see how it works.
@DF96
The reason why I use this type of litz wire is because I bought it for two other ongoing projects (200kHz & 2.2MHz) and I have plenty of it so I just wanted to try it out in this application before I'd use it in the mean jobs.
I used litz wires earlier with much thicker 6-10 strands, that was relatively easy to strip but I never worked with so thin wires before like 48 AWG. So in this application I'm just experimenting with it.
If litz gives you headaches, take an aspirin ...
Not a joke ---
wet the iron with solder, put one end of your litz on a pill of aspirin, press down gently with the hot iron until it begins to fume, add some more solder and you are done ...
a larger tip does better than a small one
its a little messy but worked for me, don't know why though ...
just avoid inhaling the fumes !
Not a joke ---
wet the iron with solder, put one end of your litz on a pill of aspirin, press down gently with the hot iron until it begins to fume, add some more solder and you are done ...
a larger tip does better than a small one
its a little messy but worked for me, don't know why though ...
just avoid inhaling the fumes !
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Correction for my previous comment:
"mean jobs" --> "main jobs" (spell checker "fixed" my typo)
@payloadde: that's the first useful application of Aspirin I've ever heard... Don't have any at home but I'll give it a shot.
"mean jobs" --> "main jobs" (spell checker "fixed" my typo)
@payloadde: that's the first useful application of Aspirin I've ever heard... Don't have any at home but I'll give it a shot.
I don't normally like to make such posts, but this is a case of extreme misapplication. 48 wire isn't necessary until the signal frequency gets into the low megahertz. Groups of 30-40 AWG wire is the finest necessary for the highest performance high frequency switching power transformers, and will do nothing measurably better for lead wire after the rectifiers. If you want to do it just so you can say you did, that's okay, but that's all you'll actually get out of it.
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