RE: Soldering Litz wire

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Lau, Gary by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Gary.Lau-at-hp-dot-com>


Original poster: "Ed Phillips by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<evp-at-pacbell-dot-net>

Tesla list wrote:
> 
> Original poster: "Lau, Gary by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<Gary.Lau-at-hp-dot-com>
> 
> I just tried the aspirin approach.  The aspirin melted at a very low
> temperature, I had a boiling vat of molten aspirin, but this had no effect
> on the enamel insulation.
> 
> The wire I'm attempting to tin is a bundle of 259 strands of #38 AWG,
> equivalent to #7AWG, about 1/4" diameter.  I also tried the
> heating-up-in-a-propane-flame approach, but it just made a mess of the
> bundle.  I was successful in using an abrasive fiberglass(?) brush to
> scrape away the enamel on a small number of strands at a time, just tedious.
> 
> Regards, Gary Lau
> MA, USA

	So much for that myth!  Will bug the friend who gave it to me.  I guess
I should ask if you put the tinned iron against the wires to make sure
you couldn't tin them.  My guess is you did and it didn't, but just to
make sure..........

What I did was to take a short length of 3/8" copper pipe, fold over one
end to seal it, heat it in a vice with a propane torch, melt about 1/2"
deep of resin core solder in the bottom, then add the aspirin tablets on
top of that.  The acidic aspirin bath may work for some kinds of copper
scale and corrosion, but the enamel is pretty tough stuff.

Regards, Gary Lau
MA, USA