As part of a project to replace my car stereo, I need to splice wires from the stereo harness to the car-specific harness. Because I’ve never done this before, I searched for a good explanation on Google. I found this page explaining the process. Can anyone tell me if that’s a good explanation? Can you recommend any other sites with a better explanation?
The easiest way to go is to use small gray or blue wire nuts which you can buy from a home supply or electrical supply store. Skin back the wires 3/8", twist together with your fingers, and apply the wire nut. Presto!
That’s actually a very nice method, but probably much more trouble than you need to take, especially if you haven’t done any soldering before and don’t already have the tools. Even if you have the tools, it’s a bit of a pain to try to do such fine work lying upside down under your car’s dash.
Easier for your purposes would probably be quick-splices like these, available from Radio Shack and other stereo and electronics suppliers. (FYI, that $1.99 buys you a package of 6 or 10 or so. They’re not $2 each.)
Thanks danceswithcats and commasense. I like the quick-splices and will pick some up on the way home from work. (BTW, the two harnesses are part of the kit, so all of the splicing will happen on the kitchen table.) I thought of using wire nuts, but wanted something more secure.
At the same time, though, I’ve already been to the store and bought the appropriate tools for soldering, so I may practice splicing on some random wires, just to learn how.
To make the wire nut splices more secure…wrap them with electrical tape.
Bad idea. It’s a common (and bad) practice, but the tape will not hold up over time, particularly if it is exposed to heat. It’s a bad practice because the tendency is to rely on the tape to hold together that which a properly installed wire nut will do all on its own.
The quick crimp connectors are good, but fully insulated butt connectors that you crimp with a tool will usually last forever.
Is there a dedicated tool for crimping butt connectors, or can I use pliers?
Butt connectors are also less bulky than wire nuts. A stereo harness full of wire nuts could get pretty unwieldy. Soldered wires with heat-shrink tubing might be the slimmest of all, but not worth the effort for the miniscule space savings.
Many wire strippers have the color-coded slots at the top for crimping butt connectors and terminal ends. Red for the small ones, yellow for the big ones, and blue for the mediums…just like the connectors themselves. So you’re likely to have the proper tool already.
You can use pliers, but it’s not a good idea. Any electronics store will carry something like this, which will crimp a variety of connectors and usually has a wire stripper.
INstead of using electrical tape, you should use heat-shrink. You can get environmental splices that come with a peice of heat shrink with solder on it. Heat it up and it’s permanently sealed.
However, you need to have a heat gun for this with a guard to protect the other wires. So it might not be worth the trouble to you depending on how badly you need to keep water out of the splice. If you do use it, just make sure you put the heat shrink on the wire before you splice. 