Wiring Question

Anyone use these? I want to use them for tapping into wires in my harness I'm making. Thanks, Lou

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2104093

 

I've used them. They're OK, but don't stand up well to much movement of the wires. Moisture might also be a problem.

If you're building a harness I'd definitely recommend you solder and tape any connections you add.

 

Carefully strip off 15mm of the casing & solder the new wire on, insulate with electrical tape, this the way it is done on the original loom.
Be sure to mark up your wiring diagram for future reference, yours or a new owner.

 

Those taps are not good for long term weather exposed connections. Took me most of a day to straighten out the trailer harness on my Venture because it'd been installed with those.

As said, solder them in. I like to use liquid electrical tape for a weather proof seal and then regular electrical tape for abrasion resistance. You can get the liquid electrical tape at hardware stores.

 

Apparently you have never stripped a stock loom then. Yamaha just exposed the wire, wrapped them together and banded them with a brass strip and taped over that. weird, I'd have thought they'd be soldered too. Not the case at all.

 

Most production automotive and motorcycle harnesses are NOT soldered but use mechnically-crimped connections instead. DW, what you observed is the rule, not an exception. The technology has improved over the years but the same principles still apply...

 

I like to use sections of heat shrink tubing to insulate a soldered connection. Stay away from those style connectors. They are temporary at best.

 

I have stripped back several stock looms & they are spliced as I said, but I really thought they were soldered. My mistake.

 

If you solder, make sure you wrap the new tail section tightly around the stripped original and don't use too much heat or you will damage the insulation. You want a good mechanical connection , then you solder. Also, a couple of layers of heat-shrink tubing , the second longer than the first. You want a strain relief which will reduce the chance of vibration breaking the joint. I prefer to use the better shrink that has a hot melt adhesive to seal the joint but that's not necessary.

 

If you are splicing on to the loom, you can't get heat shrink tubing on, unless you remove the connectors etc.

 

I'll add my 2cents - stay way from any insulation displacement connectors. Have the properties listed above....

 

For the overall harness you can't, but for the individual wire you certainly can. You put it on the wire before you connect/solder it, then, after making the connection, you slide it up over the joint and heat it.

I wouldn't bother with heat shrink when splicing into the trunk of the harness, though, unless I was making multiple splices at the same point into different circuits. Taping an individual spliced wire back to the bundle should provide plenty of strain relief by itself.

By the way, Wizard, I was pretty sure the factory splices I found in my harness were soldered as well.

Cheers,
Paul

 

Im making the harness from scratch, picked up shrink wrap. Ive ripped apart 3 harness so far and havent seen any soldered joints, only brass connectors.

 

There were two joints, in particular, that I was thinking of from my harness:

One is a supply wire that runs about 6" from the fuse box and then taps into runs going both fore and aft; the other is the wire that taps into the coil drive wire up near the coils in order to feed the tach.

Regardless, though, I can understand the factory using crimps since they would have the right tools to crimp wires more quickly than soldering them and still get similar reliability. I don't own any tools or supplies that I feel would allow me to crimp a connection as securely as soldering, so I still solder as much as I can in my harness work.

Needless to say, in the FI conversion I did a lot of harness work. I've had to redo a few of the crimped connections (insulated connectors where soldering was impractical), but I haven't had any problems with any of the soldered connections. This may well be a comment on my crimping ability, but, regardless, it's the main reason I'd much rather solder than crimp.