soldering superflex wire

[LILarry]

Hi guys,

anyone know the secret of soldering silocone super flex wire?

                                                              Thanks

                                                         Larry

[Gray Cat]

try to tin it first. (scrape it clean with emory cloth, lay on some flux then tin) Solder the point you are trying to attach it to and put the wire into the blob of molten solder quickly.

[RedfireS197]

Because Superflex is aluminum, getting solder to stick can be tricky.  If too much heat is applied while attempting to tin it, the insulation can become stiff.  I use a rosin core solder, and that seems to help.

[lionelsoni]

A Google search turns up many brands of "superflex" wire, apparently all copper.  Can you post a link to the specific wire that you want to solder?

[Gray Cat]

lionelsoni

A Google search turns up many brands of "superflex" wire, apparently all copper.  Can you post a link to the specific wire that you want to solder?

I get the same results. All copper.

[LILarry]

Hi Bob,

I am having trouble soldering copper silocone superflex 22gauge wire

What i have done is to crimp a connector to the wire and then solder that to the connection

seems to work ,but i really would like to eliminate the crimp connector

                                                                           thanks

                                                           Larry

 

 

 

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

I'm not sure what the issue is.  I use what is billed to be "superflex", basically just wire with many very fine strands, and I've never had any issue soldering it with normal rosin core solder and my 60W soldering station.

[webenda]

Fourteen gauge superflex may have 41 strands of 30 gauge wire.

SOLID WIRE

Stripping a half inch of insulation off 14 gauge solid wire exposes 0.216 square inches of surface, all on the outside of the wire. It is relatively easy to abrade copper oxide off. Flux in flux core solder has a relatively easy job keeping oxides from forming when the wire is heated during the solder operation.

STRANDED WIRE

The same length of superflex has an area of 0.795 square inches with about 0.579 square inches inside the wire bundle where it is protected from abrasion by surrounding wires. I never could get good solder wicking into the wire until I took a soldering class.

The instructor had us strip the wire and examine the copper. It was badly oxidized near the end. We were taught to always cut the end off of fine stranded wire to get to fresh copper.

The second instruction was not to try to clean fine stranded wire, abrading damages and weakens the wire. Instead dip it in thin flux, even if using flux core solder.

Third instruction was to pre-tin the tip of the wire bundle. (Gray Cat suggested this also.) Let the solder wick about half way to the insulation. (The reason for not letting solder wick up to the insulation is it stiffens the wire beyond the insulation and causes the wire to break off during vibration testing... probably not a problem for a model railroad.)

Fourth instruction was to solder wire to the pin or other device using normal soldering techniques.

I am sure there are otherways to do it. Gunrunnerjohn already told us he uses rosin core solder and a 60 watt iron and has no problem.

[cwburfle]

The superflex wire that I have on hand, in several colors and gauges, all appears to be tinned.