Cycling UK Forum

531colin wrote: ↑18 Oct 2021, 12:17pm One vote for white elephant.
Just solder the connections....its a longer lasting job than crimping, which obviously stresses the wire as you crimp.....solder splints the wire by joining the strands together.
For insulation, use heat shrink sleeving https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/303927706138 ... d51faba4ea...loads of suppliers.
This also re-inforces the "join" ....its the join which is weak with a crimp, they fatigue where the conductor isn't properly supported between the cut end of the insulation and the crimp.
If you think bicycles are a demanding application, try motorbikes.

Brake/gear wires......I use silver solder to make a proper finished end.

You may wish to read this then:
https://www.hpacademy.com/technical-art ... -crimping/
I would add a caveat regarding crimping: it has to be done correctly. I used to do production testing where I'd gently tug wires on their crimp connectors. I also had to re-solder 100s of joints due to dry, missing or too much being used. The problem with many crimp tools is getting enough leverage.
I have no experience of motorbikes but I totally agree that cycles can be demanding enough. I can remember as a kid having to bash my Ever-ready front light regularly because the contacts had become corroded or lost their springiness.

Brucey had a lot to say on this subject: see viewtopic.php?f=5&t=141668.

With regard to soldering vs crimping, a good crimp connection puts most of the strain on the part best able to cope with it, i.e. the ears of the crimp around the insulation. I don't think a soldered connection or a poorly crimped connection would survive the strain involved in pushing and pulling the connector on and off the spade connectors of a dynamo hub.

In the dark days when I was burdened with ownership of the dreaded Berlingo, we were enjoying a holiday in Northumberland when a warning light came on which the handbook interpreted as the driver's airbag being liable to deploy. In terrified mode, I drove cautiously to the Citroën place in Amble. It was late Friday afternoon and I was basically fobbed off but they said it was nothing to worry about. I spent the rest of the holiday worrying but the (now defunct) local Citroën garage said it was a well-known fault where a spade connector under the driver's seat was known to cause intermittent faults and it was fixed by soldering it. (Had I known I could have used my crimping tool and probably voided the vehicle warranty.)

A hot plate on my electric cooker stopped working.
I like always to have a look myself, and found that a spade connector had dropped off.
Easy to replace and give a squeeze with pliers.
No trouble since and I am now aware of a design weakness.

Having spent far longer than I wanted to, reading about "SN-48B" and its siblings, I have done a test-press - looks good ! Will spend the rest of the afternoon re-reading Brucey's posts on the subject of crimp v solder. One obvious advantage of crimp is there's no danger of stray solder invading the wrong places in the terminal.

simonineaston wrote: ↑18 Oct 2021, 2:08pm I have done a test-press - looks good !

No it doesn't. The length of bare wire is too long (aim for around 5mm), and the top ears should be pressing on insulation for their whole length.

OK, I should have said, "Looks good for a first go. I shall proceed to carry out more test crimps with a view to correcting the flaws evident in the picture of my first attempt!" However, that doesn't stop me for thanking you for pointing them out, slowster.

simonineaston wrote: ↑17 Oct 2021, 4:09pm My earlier annoyance at Apple's inability to readily recognize one of modern music's class acts has been mollified by the arrival of a cheapNcheerful crimping set off of Amazon. Has anyone else bought one these recently and if so, do you find it to be efficacious - or a waste of money?Screenshot 2021-10-17 at 16.02.14.png

Have had a similar tool for years. Works very well. Crimping produces a stronger and more reliable joint than soldering.

The photograph below posted by Brucey in his thread linked above shows what to aim for.

Assuming you are using heat shrink, my tip is to consider in advance carefully what you want to end up with. In addition to the necessary individual piece of heat shrink covering the crimp (and extending over a female connector), I like to have another piece of heat shrink further up (and it's essential with co-axial cable as used by Son, because otherwise bare wire is exposed where the outer insulation stops). That extra piece of heat shrink usually needs to be a larger width to enclose the two cables, and crucially it needs to be slid over the cable(s) into position ready for heating before fitting the end connectors. Moreover, getting the length and position right is not necessarily obvious: it needs to be high enough up the cable to allow sufficient independent movement of the two connectors, otherwise it becomes much more awkward getting the connectors on the spades. If the two connectors are held too closely together by heat shrink, they have to be kept parallel to each other and be pushed onto the spades together in one movement, which is fiddly. It's much easier if a connector can be pushed onto a spade largely independently of the other connector and spade.

Well, having spent most of today fiddling about with the SN-48B crimper (I can't ride as have wound right on knuckle, inflicted by lovely NHS surgeon on Friday, who rejoices under the name of Vlad... ) I've come to some conclusions.
* Crimper jaws have to match the terminals of choice, otherwise effective joint will not be made
* rules/skills for effective crimping are no harder or easier to gain than those for soldering
* bad crimp probably easier to arrive at than bad solder joint but easier to check, once you know what to look for.
Referring back to Brucey's notes of the subject, I saw that although he was strongly in favour of crimp joints, it was mainly to do with the speed with which they can be effected and their consistant reliability when made by someone who knows what they are doing. He doesn't appear to have anything intrinsically against soldering.
So all-in-all I'm glad I bought the tool - it is quick, clean & easy to use once you've learnt the rules and I won't be bothering with soldering any more - at least, not on my bike wiring.

Back in the dim distant when I did a degree in Electronics, soldering of cables was slightly frowned upon if the cable was vibrating as the solder joint is brittle and liable to snap.

But then I still have a wire-wrap tool for making circuit boards.

Yes, crimps are almost always used in preferance to solder where movement or vibration is present particularly given the nature of todays lead free solders. Given that both require skill and good practice to do well it makes sense to use crimp fittings on bikes if you have a crimping tool.

Soldered joints are generally used for static joints not subjected to movement, both are equally effective in the right application.

Lidl are selling a crimping tool from next Thursday for £7.99. https://www.lidl.co.uk/p/diy-tools/park ... set/p46734

Lidl's 'Parkside' brand covers the full range from excellent to awful, so I wouldn't have particularly high expectations over this thing, but there's never any drama about returning stuff so it's a risk-free punt.

Blast& Balderdash!! I just splashed £19 for the tool & a 40 piece set! That's a difference of several "adult beverages", even by Bristol's craft brewery prices !! Good Spot, dd

simonineaston wrote: ↑21 Oct 2021, 12:12pm Blast& Balderdash!! I just splashed £19 for the tool & a 40 piece set! That's a difference of several "adult beverages", even by Bristol's craft brewery prices !! Good Spot, dd

That's the 'Lidl/Aldi Effect.' The week after you've spent silly money on a Hamster pedicure kit, they'll hold their 'small mammals grooming sale,' Chin up though - I wouldn't be surprised if this one turned out to be junk. I bought a Parkside eyelet kit (for putting those metal tie-down hoops into tarpaulins etc.) and it was complete junk that broke instantly. However, it was so cheap, I never even got round to returning it, and it's instead being used as an ornate paperweight in my garage.