Connectors or soldered connections?

[Chicknstripn]

Which is better?
Connectors take up a lot of room and look kind of sloppy. However, they make replacing different conponents quite simple. On the other hand, they tend to have moister/corrosion issues that can lead to big time head aches.
Having soldered connections gives an advantage of space savings and, if done right, pretty much a sold wire from one area to another. On the flip side this can also be a disadvantage.

Anyway, I'm looking for some insight/advice.
I'm in the later stages of a mutant firebolt/lightning/cafe/thing build and I can fit a lot of the S harness connections(with the connectors) inside my modified single headlight. It's a little cramped with the connectors so I was thinking about nixing the connectors and straight soldering all the wiring to save space. This will also give the LEDs in the headlight some breathing room.

What do you guys think/recommend?

I'm not overly concerned about having to cut wires later on if I have to replace say...... my throttle switch housing or something like that.

For the most part I've been able to accomplish everything I've wanted, wiring wise, without having to go crazy modifying the stock S harness.

 

[ToneTheMoan]

I have never used these personally but they look quite promising, all you need is a heat gun and you have a heat wrapped and soldered join in one while still being nice and narrow! they come in all sizes!

 

[Chicknstripn]

Tone- those are pretty dam cool. What are they called? And where can I find em.

 

[Cooter]

For the low draw stuff, like the throttle switch housing, you could change the connectors to micro connectors, or run hot, ign, and ground to the headlight housing and use buss bars. That should eliminate the majority of wires.

I get most my stuff from here:http://www.delcity.net

Sometimes I just browse through to get ideas, because I'm a pathetic dork.

 

[pur pony]

i just bought a bunch of stuff for my bike at www.cycleterminal.com

I cut half of my harness out of my X1 and rewiring it with all motogadget stuff-

 

[ToneTheMoan]

Chickn i googled soldered wiring terminals and that gets you started! or ebay, amazon etc some call them heat shrink solder tubes too!

 

[nicholas900]

Generally the way I look at it..... If you are looking to hide the connectors you will most likely have to move the connector to a different place by either extending the wires or shortening anyway. So if you need to replace the part, you will have to solder on longer wires or make the new wiring shorter. So either way you will have to do some soldering. I try to use connectors where practical so various parts of the bike can be disassembled for maintenance, but I don't get overly concerned about hard wiring things.

For your particular question I think if you need more space in your headlight bucket, removing some connectors for extra clearance and peace of mind is better than having all the wiring tight in there and risking the headlight melting some wires (or even just worrying about it).

Good luck with it.

 

[Chicknstripn]

So, I decided to solder the majority of the connectors at the front of the bike.
I've done less than a half a dozen or so connections and have come to the conclusion that my 30watt Walmart special soldering pen is a complete piece of crap.
This thing takes an eternity to heat up and cools down the instant solder touches the dam thing.

Any recommendations on a fairly inexpensive but effective soldering gun/pen?

 

[AZmidget91]

This is what I use
http://www.amazon.com/Weller-WES51-Analog-Soldering-Station/dp/B000BRC2XU

 

[nicholas900]

I would stick to a Weller also. They are good. Like any tool you can spend as much as you want. I would buy the best Weller you can afford and call it a day. Don't over think it. Just let it warm up for a few minutes and keep the tip clean. Clean tips heat up quicker. I'd also get a tip cleaner, it looks like a brass Brillo pad.

One difference between a more expensive iron and a less costly iron is if it has tip temperature control. The more affordable ones just continue to heat up getting hotter and hotter (Even if they have different settings). If you leave it on too long it can melt the gun. A temperature controlled iron could be left on all day.

Solder guns heat up quick but are too much wattage for anything other than very heave cables and can damage wiring, and sensors. I'd definitely stick to a solder iron. For heavy battery cables and stuff a torch works fine.

 

[Cooter]

I've had this for years:http://www.homedepot.com/p/Weller-100-Watt-140-Watt-Soldering-Gun-Kit-8200PKS/100085564

It's a small Weller soldering gun, with low (100w) and high (140w). It's plenty small enough for 18Ga. wires and there's no waiting for the tip to heat up.

I also use this crafty thing as my 3rd hand:

You can make your own by crimping alligator clips on a short piece of coat hanger or other bendy-but-stiff-metal. I don't actually adjust it a lot. I just bent it in a 'U' shape and use it to hold each of the tinned wires I'm going to connect. Works great!:up:

 

[Chicknstripn]

Awesome feedback guys.
Appreciate it!

 

[Chicknstripn]

Wanted to give you guys an update.
I did a little thinking and the answer to my problem was in my first post. I had said that my iron kept cooling down too much every time I touched my soldering wire to it. Turns out I was using a soldering wire that was too thick and has too high a melting point for the tools and work I'm doing. I switched to a thinner wire. I also insured I cleaned my iron thoroughly between connections. Before I knew I was soldering like a pro! Well, at least I felt like I was. Until I tried to test my connections!
Flipped the key switch to the on position and NO gauge sweep, NO trip meter or OD. The oil light did come on and so did the nuetral light. I thought I'd switch the key off, wiggle some junk, check fuses and try again. This time NOTHING!
I had just started the bike last week and everything was functional.
So, I decided to test my battery and I literally got NOTHING. Thinking that maybe I was using my multimeter incorrectly I reached for my 12v test light. After hooking the alligator clip to the negative battery terminal, I stuck the probed light portion into the positive terminal and NOTHING.
So now I'm left wondering why my 2year old lithium ion battery, that started my bike up just fine last week, decided to take a dirt nap. I'm also wondering if I did something during my professional soldering job to kill said battery. Mind you, the battery WAS NOT HOOKED UP while I was working on the electrical. There are also NO blown fuses in the fuse box.
I'm going to go over all my wire work just for the sake of my sanity.

Any guidance or tips from the electical gurus would be greatly appreciated. I'm at a loss until I replace the battery.
It's also not taking a charge. So, definitely something wrong with it.

If anyone is wondering what kind of battery it is it's a starkpower lithium ultra start. Model # SP-12V18-US4

 

[RaisinCain]

I have noticed with my power tools that use lithium batteries, when they get low on charge they just stop working instead of just running slow when low on charge like the tools with NiCd batteries. Not sure if it is the same with lithium bike batteries. When I looked into getting a lithium battery for my off road bike, I was told they require different tenders and chargers than regular batteries, which is why I didn't get one. Were you charging your battery with the correct charger?

 

[Chicknstripn]

Yeah. My battery came with it own specific charger. Don't know what happened to the battery between last week and this week but it won't take a charge anymore. Had it on the charger overnight and it won't show more than 5v on the multimeter.
Not even enough juice to power my test light.

 

[Cooter]

Li-ion power tools have a shut-off feature to save the battery. Li-ion does NOT like to be less than 80% charged. Hybrid cars do the same, but I think it's more like 60%.

Unless the battery itself has that protection feature built in (I don't know, but I think not), It sounds like it either went bad or got drained past the point of no return somehow. If it's charger won't charge it...time for a new one.

My local 'Batteries and More' store actually knows quit a bit about batteries, Shocker! Maybe ask someone at one of those stores?

 

[Chicknstripn]

I was thinking the same as you as far as the batteries and more idea.

This specific battery does have discharge protection and overcharge protection circuitry.
I'm thinking something has gone hay wire with those internals.

The battery was not in the bike while I was doing my wiring work and yet on closer inspection of the battery something cause the battery to melt on the lower left corner below the positive terminal. I had the battery mounted so this area was close to the grounding point in the subframe. However, I'm pretty sure the ground was not touching the battery.
Anyway, I'm dissapointed the battery has to be replaced after a little more than two years.

I'm currently looking for a small, yet cheap AGM with at least 250CCA
Found one made by a company named renagade. Might go for that since it's about the same size as my lithium its replacing