Gentlemen, I'd like to hear from anyone here that has had some “hands on” experience with resistance soldering. It's use would be for track and wiring work, not electronic work. Delicate tasks are not very easy for me anymore (due to Essential Tremor) and the less time I have to try and hold anything steady the better. American Beauty and Hotip appear to be the major brands, both of which are pretty pricy. I know that there are a few fellows here that have built their own equipment but that's not for me. I'd appreciate any input on the benefits this method would have for me.
Thanks,
Tim
Tim - Welcome to Trains.com!
Darren (BLHS & CRRM Lifetime Member)
Delaware and Hudson Virtual Museum (DHVM), Railroad Adventures (RRAdventures)
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Unless you're planning to build turnouts, I'd say that resistance soldering is overkill, and, perhaps it is even for turnout building. To make fast and solid solder connections, the mating surfaces need to be clean: this may involve various cleaning solutions or solvents, along with abrasive methods, such as sandpaper or files.
Once the surfaces are clean, apply a small amount of good quality, resin-based flux. Use it even if you're using resin core solder.
Your soldering iron should have a clean, well-tinned tip, and should be big enough for the task at hand. Generally, too big is preferable to too small. Allow the iron to reach operating temperature before attempting to make any joints. Where possible, pre-tin the mating parts - this often allows you to temporarily hold the parts together by mechanical means: a quick touch of the hot iron completes the joint.
Where working in areas where excess heat may cause damage to surrounding materials, use heat sinks. These can be any solid metal object - pliers, head of a hammer, or alligator clips. An especially easy-to-use heat sink can be made from wet facial tissue or paper towelling - leave it damp or wet, depending on the job, and as long as it sizzles and steams while you're working, it will protect the things it's supposed to protect. Often, the wad of wet tissue holds itself in place, but alligator clips make useful holders, too. When using this type of heat sink, I like to use the largest wattage iron that will fit in the particular work area.
I did all of the soldering work on this locomotive, including building the ladder in-place on the front of the tender and adding details near the plastic turret cover, by using wet tissue heat sinks. Soldering equipment included various irons from 25 to 200 watts, along with a propane plumbers torch.
Wayne
Speaking as an ex-Assembler and Electronics Technician, the American Beauty is a good station. I don't know about the other one. Although I have only minimal use with it, I don't think it is going to solve your problem.
I'm not sure what you have in mind when you say it will be for track work. (What scale are you modeling in, and what do you want to do with it?)
I also don't recommend it for wiring work. You should be able to make a good mechanical wiring connection, apply some flux to the area, clean your soldering iron tip, load the tip with solder, and hit the wire joint. That technique should work except on large stranded wire where you will need to apply more solder.
A 60 watt iron should serve you well as you are probably old enough to know not to leave the heat on the joint too long. 60 watts should be hot enough to do your tasks quickly. I would also look for an iron that has a short heating element if you can find one. Quite a few of them seem to have long elements which put the tip a longer distance from the hand piece.
Elmer.
The above is my opinion, from an active and experienced Model Railroader in N scale and HO since 1961.
(Modeling Freelance, Eastern US, HO scale, in 1962, with NCE DCC for locomotive control and a stand alone LocoNet for block detection and signals.) http://waynes-trains.com/ at home, and N scale at the Club.
I've used resistance soldering for attaching wires to the bottom of various bits of trackwork including frogs and points, and it worked great. I bought the big American Beauty device and a whole lot of "accessories". They are indeed overcharging for it, but it works and it's available.
I use the carbon rod to do the soldering (there are various attachments to choose from). For trackwork, I attach the ground wire to the rail, put a small bit of flux on the end of the subject wire, hold the wire onto the rail bottom with the carbon rod (not easy), hit the foot switch and apply solder. And, of course, release the foot switch. A foot switch is pretty much necessary, as you'll want to be using both hands. You'll also want to practice with it first, 'cause the plastic ties can still get kinda melty pretty quickly.
Using this tool is no piece of cake, but it definitely is useful. It MAY work for you.
Ed
Thanks for the welcome and reply’s fellows. I'm in HO gauge. I was into model trains back in the late 40's up until the mid 50's, so I've been away for awhile. I know the basics of soldering. Back then my hands were steady and I didn't have any trouble, but not now. I have no intentions of trying to solder details onto locomotives or working on decoders. I'm interested in building solid track work with good electric continuity. Joining two rails together, making jumpers and feeder connections will be my biggest challenge. Here is why I'm looking into resistance soldering, it's the speed, Not speed in the sense of getting the layout done any quicker, but the speed at which I could get a job that’s difficult for me to do to be done in a matter of seconds. If I can believe what the manufacture say, and what I seen on the few videos, good solder joints can be made in just a few seconds. Watching me trying to solder track work is like watching two monkeys fighting over a football. So the less time I have to try and hold something steady the better.
Ed, thanks for your input. I was hoping that there would be someone using this equipment. I saw one video where they demonstrated two rails being soldered together. Both rails were cleaned and slipped together with a rail joiner and fluxed. The tweezers were pressed on each rails about 1/4” from the gap and the solder wire placed at the gap, the foot switch was pressed and within two or three seconds there was a perfect solder joint. I'm thinking that this may work for me.
Dumont462 ........I saw one video where they demonstrated two rails being soldered together. Both rails were cleaned and slipped together with a rail joiner and fluxed. The tweezers were pressed on each rails about 1/4” from the gap and the solder wire placed at the gap, the foot switch was pressed and within two or three seconds there was a perfect solder joint. I'm thinking that this may work for me.
........I saw one video where they demonstrated two rails being soldered together. Both rails were cleaned and slipped together with a rail joiner and fluxed. The tweezers were pressed on each rails about 1/4” from the gap and the solder wire placed at the gap, the foot switch was pressed and within two or three seconds there was a perfect solder joint. I'm thinking that this may work for me.
I'm guessing that, for you, the most attractive part of resistance soldering is the clip-on tweezers - no holding things in place. A soldering iron is at least as quick, but it, and the solder, does need to be held to the area being soldered. If you can afford the initial cost, it seems a good solution for your situation.
Dumont462,
Hi, this is a neat question, one I can actually speak to! I have (& use) an American Beauty Mod: 105A12, & i like to use the tweezer tips. Honestly, I have not used it too much, but have been successfull in repairing accessories on brass locomotives. The resistance system excels in the area where you have a heavy hard to heat (&bond) core to a very light part! An example would be when I attached, rather, re-attached a bell bracket to a thick boiler core of a brass train. I put the tips of the electrodes beside the bell mount on the boiler, & 'melted in' the bell bracket. It concentrated the heat across the thick boiler & softened the solder to drop in the bell bracket, which also became heated! At that point I side footed the control & let it cool! The tricky part is clamping or having that "Third Hand" to help!
I would really avoid thinking or considering it for elecronics, as it uses a high AC current to create the heat. (keep reading, please)
I am also an experienced TIG welder, originally bought it for hobby use, & gunsmithing, & since I have made a very quiet Audi by TIG Welding a header bung, to make a consumable & short lived Flex pipe exhaust part replacable in the future.. The point here is Resistance Soldering & TIG welding are similar, but the soldering is missing the Arc & the Argon! (However, [when I am TIGg'n or Resistance Soldering] & if I forget & have the Audi FOB in my pocket, the AC will DEPROGRAM my FOBs)... (Yeah, I know the steps by heart, how to re-prog them, now!)..
Anyway, I like using the resistance soldering for projects, I have many to do & will use it much more. One such project is a very sensitive & fragile bridge project I am working on.. I also want to put inside gaurd rails on it, & brass rail bolt plates on the outside of the rails.. (trimmed plastic ones on the inside to not have wheel flange knocking/clearance issues)... How many solder operations do you see there?
I have come up with 20 joints..There are 12 joints on the main rails (one each side), & if I have the inner gaurd rails that is another 8 joints. The reason being is that each span has it's own rail section, driven by the products I chose, there is also a gaurd rail feeder section on each end of the girder sections, feeding the entire span. So yeah, 20 joints, Yikes!!!
Not wanting to melt the feeder bridges & all the plastic ties, I will use the Resistance Soldering unit!
However, for normal track work & all electronics, I use a 5-25w pencil soldering iron.. It may take longer but it will work..
Whichever method you choose, it seems you still need 5 hands, & 12 clamps.., Ha hah, No really! It's true...
Dumont462 I saw one video where they demonstrated two rails being soldered together. Both rails were cleaned and slipped together with a rail joiner and fluxed. The tweezers were pressed on each rails about 1/4” from the gap and the solder wire placed at the gap, the foot switch was pressed and within two or three seconds there was a perfect solder joint. I'm thinking that this may work for me.
I saw one video where they demonstrated two rails being soldered together. Both rails were cleaned and slipped together with a rail joiner and fluxed. The tweezers were pressed on each rails about 1/4” from the gap and the solder wire placed at the gap, the foot switch was pressed and within two or three seconds there was a perfect solder joint. I'm thinking that this may work for me.
Tim,
I think this process will quite likely work for you.
You're going to have to adjust the power supply--too low and things just kinda get warm--too high and things happen way too quickly. So, test it out a few times.
You should get some extra tips for the handpiece--I'm pretty sure the original ones won't last a whole long time.
While the tweezers sound like they work great on getting solder into a rail joint, you might find the single electrode style more useful for attaching a wire to the rail. I use the electrode to hold the wire in place during the process.
Again, practice before you try this on something that you care about. When it works, it's like magic. When it doesn't, well, it's NOT like magic.
Another comment:
While it's a good demonstration about how neat resistance soldering is, I recommend not getting carried away with soldering rail joints. Due to variations of thermal expansion (and more), I believe problems will arise that would not if the minor gap is left in the rail joint.
So, I solder wires to the bottom of every piece of rail and do not solder rail joints EXCEPT:
In curves, where I presolder the whole section of track before "bending" the curve--minimizing kinks at the joints
Short pieces of track, as in the filler piece to make a yard track just the right length--that one, I just go ahead and solder the joiners to the next full piece
I do solder wire to the bottoms of the points and to the bottom of the frog and wing rails and these go to a micro switch activated by the ground throw--insurance. And, in the case of insulated metal frogs, it powers them up to minimize stalls.
With the single electrode handpiece, I've had no problems soldering to the underside of these various rails. Well, maybe a little tie melting when I wasn't paying attention; but that was more operator error than a problem with the tool.
Chad, nice looking bridge. I'm seriously looking at the American Beauty 250W. A long time ago I did a little bit of arc welding, but with a 10” electrode waving around I'd be striking an arc every place but where I wanted it too. I tried MIG welding, at least you can hold the gun in one hand and rest the nozzle on your other one, provided you had the room. You can do some beautiful work with a TIG but you need a steady hand. Strange you mention gunsmithing, I just threaded a few pistol and rifle barrels for a friend for his suppressors. Next in line is to machine up a bunch of “K” baffles.
Ed, one of the reasons I'm leaning towards the American Beauty is the ability to vary the power settings from 0 to 100%. The Hotip only has 4 power settings, nothing in-between . The Hotip does includes the single electrode in their kit but AB does not, it's extra.
Wayne, your right about the cost. It's no small investment. But I've never bought a tool that the first time I've used it, it hasn’t paid for it's self, at least that's what I tell my wife.