Solder, Crimp or Screw terminals?

[bayareaberk at yahoo.com (T Berk)]

--- Brian Haygood <haygood@myway.com> wrote:

> 
> So what is going to give me the best connection for
> battery and ground cables?  Solder, Crimp, or Screw
> terminals?  I have had good luck so far with solder
> terminals, puddling them with solder and dunking hot
> wire into them.  I was looking at using the P3 stuff
> for some ground wiring on the new car, but I don't
> have faith in the screw terminals.  
> 
> What say you?
> 
> Brian
> 


I like a good solid connection and SOLDER does it for
me.

- Clean both wire/cable and the receptacle it's going
into (Spade or ring terminal, etc)

- Dunk wire into NON-acid based rosin, and pre-tin the
end of the wire/cable

- Now dip it back into the rosin, I mean lay on a good
thick glop of the stuff and solder it into the
receptacle.

- After things have cooled and there is a confirmation
of a good connection, coat the new end with something
to keep moisture and O2 out.Liquid-Tape is kind of
nice, Plasticoat does a decent job under the hood. I
have found most shrink-tube to be disappointing in
that it gets brittle over time and with the heat the
motor produces. (In the rest of the car this isn't
such a problem.)

In any case having a lot of excess dielectric grease
and/or rosin in there between the mating surfaces
makes for a good long term connection. (Yes, there is
somewhat of a trouble to be had with the PH of a given
rosin over time, lets just not talk about that, shall
we?)

This goes for crimping and the screw type connections
as well, jam some jelly in there.


TBerk





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