They aren’t. Crimping is faster and easier, but not necessarily better. Electrically, the soldered connection will offer lower resistance, typically. Crimped connections can be quite strong, but if not done properly are rather more prone to failure. In fact, in the hi-rel electronics industry, it is typical practice to flood solder crimped connections, just to insure a completely reliable electrical and mechanical connection. Don’t listen to anyone telling you to crimp and not solder–if for no other reason than simply learning TO solder. It’s a very useful skill to have.
Q.E.D. beat me to it. Yeah, I do this all the time.
In addition, I’d advise putting an old piece of wood or something under the work, if possible. If the OP starts applying 50 billion times more solder than necessary (something we’ve all done, I’m sure), the excess will start to fall off in hot little leaden raindrops of doom. Having something under the work to catch them (where they’ll spread out like shiny jagged snowflakes, which I find kind of charming in itself) is better then just letting them fall wherever they please, possibly onto other wires or melting into dashboard plastic or causing other mayhem.
[sub]800 watts, yikes. Why not just bring in a flamethrower?[/sub]
Crimp on connectors must be of the correct size for the number wires and sizes combinations.
Crimp-ons too large for the wires/sizes and you can"t get a solid crimp.
Aviod over crimping and cutting the connector and the wires!
I keep an assortment of types and sizes on hand as well as a box of small splice caps for such jobs yours.
Solder is seldom used anymore for much of anything other than electronics.
FYI: In the dark distant past soldering was done with “Soldering Coppers” heated with a gasoline blowtorch to solder galvanized rain gutters and downspouts, plumbing, and electrical connections.
Rejoice that you don’t have to cope with toting all that gear around when electric ‘irons’ and crimp-ons are available!
First off 30 watts is plenty for two 18 ga wires. I have a seven watt iron that I use for stuff like this.
As far as crimp connectors go, yes a properly crimped connector is as good as a solder joint. There is just two little problems with that statement
- The crimp connectors you usually find an auto parts store or at a Radio Shack type store are shit I’m talking about the ones that are color coded red for small wires, blue for medium wires, and yellow for the big honkin wires. Absolute crap.
- The pliers they sell to crimp those shitty connectors are craptacular at best. They won’t generate enough force to do a proper crimp
Bart Simpson has a perfect description of what you wind up with when you use a shitty connector and a crappy tool.
[Bart Simpson] I didn’t think it was possible, but this sucks and blows at the same time[/BS]
Compare that to the tools and connectors we use at our dealers to repair a connector. The pliers cost about $100 each and will create a crimp that is identical to what the factory made when the harness was built.
When I changed out the stero in my daughters car, I soldered the wires, and used heat shrink over the top.
May I suggest something a bit easier than soldering? Having worked in the aerospace electrical/electronics field for more than a few decades, I have seen the latest and greatest when it comes to attaching two wires to each other. If you have access to a quality electrical component dealer, you will find the latest method of joining 2 wires are called zap solder splices. We use them at Boeing to attach circular wires to the shields of shielded wires. They come in open ended (similar to butt splices in which to place one wire in each end) and closed ended (used for muliple wire connections, 3 or more wires all go in one end). The open ended are color coded for wire size (red 20-26 guage, blue 16-18, and yellow 12-14). the splice will have a ring of solder in the center and each end will have a heat activated seal. You stick a wire in each end insuring the conducter of each over laps at the solder, heat with a heat gun till the solder and seal melt (without burn marks!), the tube shrinks providing a tight fit with insulation support and your splice is complete. Besides being as good or better mechanically and electrically that most other methods of joining two wires, the splice is also moisture proof. The splices we use at Boeing are made by 3M but their website does not have much info on them. I will try to find some info from other sources.