Spent two years soldering harnesses wrong before a QC guy showed me the right way

I was at a shop in Phoenix for about two years doing avionics installs. I always twisted my wires before tinning them. Last month a QC guy comes over and says hey why are you doing that. He told me twisting before tinning actually creates weak points. I felt like an idiot. Has anyone else had a basic thing they did wrong for way too long?

3 comments

3 Comments

grace_knight1914d ago

I used to twist my wires too for three years at a shop in Tucson. Ngl, I thought it made the connection stronger and never questioned it until a QC guy pointed out the same thing. His explanation about weak points made total sense and I felt dumb for never looking it up.

rodriguez.mia14d ago

Seen a YouTube video say the same thing about wire fatigue.

abbyp6114d ago

My trick was to just stop twisting and start keeping the strands parallel before tinning. A guy at a Pan Am training session years back showed me to hold the wires flat against a piece of scrap wood and just brush the flux on, then tin them without any twisting at all. Made the connections way more consistent and I never had a break at the solder point again. Took me longer to unlearn the habit than to learn the new way, but it stuck. Your mileage may vary, but keeping everything straight forward worked wonders for me.