Re: Soldering Litz wire

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-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..........

	I have used a very small torch on 50-38 litz wire because I was too
lazy to wait for the enamel stripper to work.  Takes several doses of it
for formvar to let go, and the fine wire soaks up the stripper and it's
generally a mess.  Anyhow, the heat plus ultra-fine steel wool did work
and I didn't break very many strands.  I heated the wires until the
smoke went away and about 1/2" of the end of the bundle was red hot.  I
know that some of the recent insulation will melt and might well cause a
mess, but if you heat it enough to vaporize copper I'm sure the enamel
will be gone.  By the way, for those who don't have one, this little
torch is neat.  Got it from special Frey's for about 6 bucks.  For fuel
it uses a drop-in Scripto cigarette lighter as is.  There is an off-on
lever and a piezoelectric starter so you can do everything
single-handed.  Tiny but useful flame.  I suspect you may be able to
find these things for a lot less than Fry's "special" price, but think
it was worth at least what I paid.

Ed