Solder Stick/Solder Butt connectors V Crimp Butt Connectors

I have always been told that soldering connections was the way to go until I recently took the Wiring Fundamentals course where Zac Perston said that he recommends not using solder unless it is necessary, so does this apply the same way to solder sticks/solder butt connectors. do they suffer from the same cracking and failing from from vibrations that regular solder does? is it better to just use regular crimp butt connectors?

Hello Joe

On professional motorsport only use soldering on the shield (Raychem S0103S), but these are always supported with a boot.

In my opinion the problem is the vibration and oxidation during soldering.

I would never solder anything to the vehicle, I also use splice for the shielding.

Depending on the space, Open Barrel Splice or Parallel Splices from TE (34138)

See the file attached

Simon

I've been soldering on vehicles for close to 30 years, if not longer, not a single failure of a soldered joint. I live in an area where temperatures swing of -20ish C to +30ish C between winter and summer months, along with large swings in humidity, along with cars going through typical vibration from use, on the street and track, etc.

I've gone through the myths of solder = bad probably hundreds of times now, and people will still claim that soldered joints fail, yet no one has provided proof of a soldered joint failure BECAUSE it was soldered. Most "failures" that are provided are because of mechanical interference, where a crimped joint would have also failed, or people that will poorly solder a connection and then sit there and flex and bend it until it fails, and it's a point next to the soldered joint that fails, and a stressed and flexed crimped joint would also fail just the same. I know many will disagree with me, but I'll stick to my guns on this, as soldering has been far more reliable than crimped joints in my experience.

Any joint, soldered or crimped really needs to be properly supported, so for terminals, this means proper strain relief, which many terminals have built in (the second crimp that holds onto the seal or the wire insulation), or by use of a good heat shrink, dual wall or SCL that will glue itself to the terminal and wire insulation. Wire to wire joints will have some support from the heatshrink used to insulate the joint, but also need to be supported either by other wires in the harness, tied together with a tie-wrap, and/or tape, and/or heatshrink/tight harness covering that holds the joint in place, again, this is needed regardless of whether you solder or crimp.

So to answer your question, the solder sleeves COULD have the same issues if you were to use the more traditional method, of cutting your own heatshrink and soldering it from a roll, if it's not properly supported.

That being said I'm not a fan of the solder sleeves. The solder is typically a lower temperature solder which when solifies does seem to have near the same heat resistance of solder from a roll, but it that may or may not flow out well when the heat is applied, typically it flows well, but if it doesn't, you're cutting the wire again, which means that you typically need to cut the wire back a bit farther and add a second joint to have the necessary length. Whereas when you apply each part separately, if you have trouble with the solder flow, you can reapply heat before you slide the heatshrink over the joint and solve it without extra steps. However a lot of people do seem to like them, so it comes down to personal preference here.

Regardless of which type of joint you use, it needs to be done well to be reliable, meaning the use of proper tools and techniques to get solid reliable connections.

I appreciate the responses. I am just a 19 year old college student trying to building my small block nitrous 1/8 mile car so I don't have much time or money. I'm thinking in my scenario solder sticks will probably work fine. my car doesn't deal with much road use or sausage curbs. Just burnout, stage, 2 step, launch shift, then shut off. so not many vibrations like a track car going over rumble strip.