Other lead went easier. I’m using leaded all the way btw. No video of active work since I don’t have separate camera set up and am using phone.
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Snip excess lead wire and add a zip tie for strain relief (the leads broke because I was doing an experiment with sloppy workholding). So long as I don’t run the motor too hot it should be fine.
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Test passes
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Next up. Another motor repair job, tougher. Remember how in first soldering attempt I managed to rip the tab off? Gonna try salvaging that motor.
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Screwed up badly attempting to solder leads onto a motor. Ended up ripping the delicate copper lead off because I couldn’t quite figure out how to do it quickly with a light touch.
Setting this aside for now. This is advanced green belt stuff. I’m still yellow belt.
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The problem is: what’s left of the copper tab is under some plastic tab. My idea is to just use a solder blob itself as a tab and hope enough gets under plastic to form a connection.
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First attempt didn’t work. Plastic melted a bit and solder beaded up. It doesn’t bond to plastic maybe? No picture to show since only 2 hands.
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Brainwave! Since wick was sticking to the tab last time, maybe that can be a feature here! Idea is maybe solder-soaked wick will bind to both lead wire and plastic housing AND maybe deep under plastic tab and make contact. Put some wick under wire and try to glob up both!
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Result: I got a physical join after a couple of false starts. But is there electrical contact??
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Holy crap it worked! I’m a genius!
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Solder on other lead and we’re done. *Looks around smugly, super-impressed with himself*
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Okay, last solder experiment of the day. Let’s try leaded on a pcb. With some of the new 24 awg solid core I bought. Result: beautiful. Far better than the older lead-free soldering I did on same board.
Final task for the day: test out the heat gun and shrink tubes I bought. This I’ve done before… in 1998.
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Let’s add a heat shrink to the battery holder lead I fixed earlier. Slide it on, grab gun…
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And… it just worked. No story here. I have a nicely fixed batter holder now.
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Let’s wrap for today with a clean-up note. I’ve really learned to appreciate the value of leaving a workshop as clean as you can for next time. Silicone mat is a mess after all that genius work. But I have discovered an easy genius clean-up hack: a bit of tape!
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Voila!
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On the menu for next time: trying to solder leads onto male JST connectors. These are designed for board-to-wire boardside, not wire-to-wire, so you have to solder on rather than crimp on.
Also: try these solder-seal connectors that can be done with a heat gun.
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Fixed a charger for the halo strap that got chewed up by cat. Had to cut away chewed up part, strip the two coax conductors and solder them. Worst job ever but it does work again. I ended up twisting ends together pointed the same direction. It was too hard to do a butt join.
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For extra credit fixed chewed up MacBook charger too. Cats are a menace. They almost cost more in chewed up cords and cables than food.
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I’m unbelievably bad at soldering
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