My signals use LEDs and their leads are the finest magnet wire I have ever seen. It must be smaller than a human hair. As small as it is, I have had NO success tinning it. Rosin flux paste, silver bearing or rosin core solder just wont stick. What do I do? Wire strippers are basically ineffective to strip the enamel off.
I usually put a blob of solder on the tip of my iron, I can then hold the end of the wire in the molten blob until the enamel melts off. It can take several seconds for this to occur.
Thanks! I basically tried that, and it didn't work. Either my iron is not hot enough, or I'm too darned impatient. Probably the latter, but I'll try again.
It's been a while for me but I used the soldering iron to melt away the protective layer. The dab the wire in flux and hold against solder blob of contact and apply the iron. Maybe I got lucky, but it worked for me.
Have had same experience with fine prewired LED's. Bit of a worry at first, but found the best way was to scrape the wire with a hobby knife blade. Must be able to see the shiny bare copper. The wire is then ready to tin. A solder bath tinning method worked for me, liquid flux dip then dip into solder bath giving a clean pretinned finish. Ebay and the like have cheap solder pots at approx A$20 for those who do pretinning regularly.
The best way is as Bob B mentioned- scrape the enamel off. I use a lot for guitar coil winding, and the best method is to scrape. Be careful with the fine wires as a bit too much force will cut the copper. I use Kester 186 flux and rosin core 63:37 lead-tin solder. If you are using "Lead-free", it does not wet copper nearly as well as Lead-Tin.
Forgot to mention, most wire intended for coils or magnets is purposely coated with a dark high heat resistant variant of laquar for insulation between coil windings. An engineering feature to lessen internal shorts within a coil. In contrast to the honey coloured variants which can be removed with heat in most cases, the darker variants resist heat well, giving us a headache as described. Cheers
Thanks for the info! These leads are about as fine as a human hair, so the scrape will have to be very careful.
Yes indeed, from my experience with LED signal wires in N scale. Afterthought again, have used / "borrowed" Mom's abrasive fingernail sanders. They work too.! Cheers
The scraping method worked! I tested them via a 9v battery back before I installed them, and they worked, but now the battery must be going dead. They tinned as expected once the enamel was scraped off. The old power pack worked though.
