Has anyone used these solder heat shrink connectors?
Do you still have to crimp them or just heat them?
I got them online but haven't used them before. Picture attached.

 

I have had experience with them.

They suck! And yes, that is my Professional Opinion of the product.

Edit: no crimp required. They shrink and the solder melts but seldom did the actual copper of the wires themselves become hot enough to trigger solder flow onto the metal of the wires. It encapsulated the wires and resulted in poor ground connections in every cable we built using them.

 

Do yourself a favor and throw them in the garbage. I use them for my students to show them what you shouldn't buy. Kermit has it right when he says they don't fuse with the copper wire. The solder just surrounds it. The copper wire never gets hot enough to make a good connection. It is basically held together by the melted plastic cover.

 

Used those back in the 70's at MacDonald Douglas Aircraft Systems. Used to be a wire stringer, and when we had to splice a junction that was one of the ways we did it. I never noticed a problem with them, but then again, DC10's were known to fall from the skies.

The very latest I've seen them used was in 1986 when I worked for an Oil Well Drilling Tools manufacturer. The boxes on the rig (off shore) were constructed mostly of crimped connectors, but there WERE a number of those splices used for coax grounding. I have no idea if the Deep Water Horizon used anything like that. Then again, DWH had their own problems.

Back at MacDonald Douglas, we used a high intensity light source to cause the solder to flow. At worst, I remember solder obscuring the wire, so there probably wasn't any adhesion to the copper, but at best, I can remember seeing the solder flow beautifully. I guess it all depends on the heat. Insufficient heat may melt the solder but not adhere to the copper.

I guess it's at your discretion whether to use them or not. It probably depends on how much heat you can get into the joint and how fast. If the joint oxidizes then it probably won't be a very good joint.

 

I did not use them very much but what I do remember is that we had a special heat gun to do the soldering. I wonder if it ran at a higher temperature than a common heat gun.

We were using these to solder a ground wire onto a Teflon insulated coax. I suspect that the Teflon was needed to withstand the high soldering tempratures.

 

Damn it. I've ordered a bunch of them online.
https://www.greasemonkeydirect.com/...oducts/heatshrink-solder-splice-16-14-gauge25

Wish I had of read this before hand. But never mind, they're cheap as chips. Not going to break the bank.
The "no crimp required" seemed like a good selling point, but as Kermit has pointed out, probably not such a good idea. I'll just try and get a good heat source on them. Fingers crossed it'll do the trick.

 

As I remember, using them at home I had a projector lamp that had its own reflector. Ran on 120 volts. It was out of a microscope. I'll look around and see if I can find one. The ONLY two things about that is holding a hot lamp and not being blinded by the intense light.

I'll see if I can find something and post it. AND I give no guarantees that it'll work.

[edit] Found this: https://www.1000bulbs.com/product/6704/STAG-ENHSYL.html

Again, no guarantee. But the nice thing is you can focus the beam by adjusting the length to the target. Can be used to shrink sleeving too.

 

Here's what I had in mind: Notice the light rays go everywhere, but there is a focal point where it gets intensely hot. You will likely need wiring that can handle that much heat for powering the lamp as well.

 

Allied Electronics carries them. From the datasheet, it looks like China found an outlet for their glut of Cadmium (side product from their tin mines).

http://www.alliedelec.com/alpha-wir...VlYFTOCWYJ0MI-OZWS5n0i2vNECN8nVCjYaAnpl8P8HAQ

This is the datasheet - absolutely no instructions on use.

 

Great. Thanks Tony/ Gopher