A step forward!

[blindfire]

W00t. I've made a giant leap forward (for me) yesterday!

My day, yesterday.

I made my own power pole cables.
I made a set of cables with the wire connect ends.
1 hooked my charge controller up to my power supply via said power pole cable. (Power pole on one end and bare wire on the other).
I hooked my battery up to the charge controller with second set of cables.
I hooked the radio up to the charge controller and ran it.

Yeah, I know...small potatoes for you pros...but this was a big deal for me!

Now, I'm just waiting on my BatPac to show up and then I can run two batteries in parallel.


Next big task for me is to teach myself how to solder. That should be fun! Pretty sure my home owner's insurance is up to date!!!

 

[chaser001]

Congratulations on acquiring a new skill!

 

[cockpitbob]

Yeah, congrats!
Just remember which end of the soldering iron is hot. I've grabbed the wrong end twice in my career as an electrical engineer. It's a smell you remember
You'll pick up soldering quick. Youtube can probably teach you in half an hour. The 2 things to remember are: 1) flux is your friend. If the solder doesn't look wet and shiny, but dull and crusty, you need to dissolve that crust with flux(touch it with more solder), 2) it's all about heat management. Heavy wires? Use a fat tip on the iron to dump lots of heat into it. Copper draws heat out really quick.
If you like to learn new things, ham radio should keep you entertained for the next 50 years or so.

 

[ToddDubya]

At a high level, soldering iron/gun ratings are a measure of how well they resist cooling down. A 10W iron will probably get just as hot as a 100W gun, but the gun will maintain that heat better when applied to a big fat wire.

Power Poles are cool, aren't they? I bought the fancy ass crimper and a bunch of connectors and went crazy.

I'm curious to hear about the BatPack. When I first learned about those I wanted an excuse to get one/some.

 

[AHM]

W00t. I've made a giant leap forward (for me) yesterday! ...

I made my own power pole cables. ...

Congrats!

(You configured the Powerpoles using the ARES standard, right?)

 

[quincy]

Let the soldering fun begin. Bring on those PL-259's. You will need a good 200-260w gun for those. Don't melt the the RG-8X foam. [emoji851][emoji851]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[blindfire]

At a high level, soldering iron/gun ratings are a measure of how well they resist cooling down. A 10W iron will probably get just as hot as a 100W gun, but the gun will maintain that heat better when applied to a big fat wire.

Power Poles are cool, aren't they? I bought the fancy ass crimper and a bunch of connectors and went crazy.

I'm curious to hear about the BatPack. When I first learned about those I wanted an excuse to get one/some.

Yeah, it sounded pretty bad-ass. Power pole connectors both fused and unfused for hookup. The guy told me how to run one BatPac by simply using the unfused power pole connectors to connect to the second battery. He did this full well knowing that he could have just as easily told me to buy a second one so that you connect the two. I respect the hell out of that and will probably buy a second one so I can have a production set of batteries and a backup pair...each run by the BatPac.

Still waiting to get it...should be here this week. Will do a video of it and post it on YouTube.

- - - Updated - - -

Congrats!

(You configured the Powerpoles using the ARES standard, right?)

As far as I know, yes?

Red on right...tongue down, right?

 

[AHM]

... (You configured the Powerpoles using the ARES standard, right?)

...
As far as I know, yes?

Red on right...tongue down, right?

I thought it was Red Right Returning...oh wait, that's buoys in North America.

See this reference.

 

[drgrant]

If you're going to take up soldering, stay away from the cheap shit and get a Weller WTCPT or something like that.

http://www.amazon.com/WTCPT-Temperature-Controlled-Soldering-Station/dp/B00004W463

Shit, I don't ever remember them being that expensive, but I have two. Theres a good reason for this...

The cheap pencil irons will bug the shit out of your fingers because they will heat up the wand even though its made out of high temp plastic, so they get uncomfortable to hold.

They also don't have an integrated stand. So you're putting the iron in stupid places. the hazards this creates is pretty obvious. Melting shit. Burning yourself by hitting it on acccident, etc, etc, ad nauseam.

The WTCPT has good recovery time, even though its nominally 60W, its still just powerful enough to properly do coax connectors if you're using good ones like silver plated amphenols, etc. (BTW, as an aside, I'd hang myself before I ever bought another coax connector that wasn't silver plated... the chrome or whatever the **** it is, **** those things, and **** whoever decided that making them out of that shit was a good idea. )

When I bought my first WTCPT (which is still working, btw, and its over 20 years old now) I said to myself "You ****ing idiot, you should have bought one of these a long time ago". Otherwise I wouldn't have had nearly as many burns on my fingers from soldering irons, as well as holes burned in chairs, etc. After I got the WTCPT I never burned myself with a soldering iron (at least not, directly) ever again. (It also helps that its ergonomically much more comfortable to use, too. )

-Mike

 

[blindfire]

If you're going to take up soldering, stay away from the cheap shit and get a Weller WTCPT or something like that.

http://www.amazon.com/WTCPT-Temperature-Controlled-Soldering-Station/dp/B00004W463

Shit, I don't ever remember them being that expensive, but I have two. Theres a good reason for this...

The cheap pencil irons will bug the shit out of your fingers because they will heat up the wand even though its made out of high temp plastic, so they get uncomfortable to hold.

They also don't have an integrated stand. So you're putting the iron in stupid places. the hazards this creates is pretty obvious. Melting shit. Burning yourself by hitting it on acccident, etc, etc, ad nauseam.

The WTCPT has good recovery time, even though its nominally 60W, its still just powerful enough to properly do coax connectors if you're using good ones like silver plated amphenols, etc. (BTW, as an aside, I'd hang myself before I ever bought another coax connector that wasn't silver plated... the chrome or whatever the **** it is, **** those things, and **** whoever decided that making them out of that shit was a good idea. )

When I bought my first WTCPT (which is still working, btw, and its over 20 years old now) I said to myself "You ****ing idiot, you should have bought one of these a long time ago". Otherwise I wouldn't have had nearly as many burns on my fingers from soldering irons, as well as holes burned in chairs, etc. After I got the WTCPT I never burned myself with a soldering iron (at least not, directly) ever again. (It also helps that its ergonomically much more comfortable to use, too. )

-Mike

Mike, thanks for the link. As soon as I saw that, I remembered that was the unit all of my EE buddies in college had. Will pick one up in the next month or so. Definitely don't want to skimp on that stuff. I tried using those cheap-ass irons that comes with the "computer repair kits" and hated every second of it. (Man, i reread the previous sentence and realized that a hyphen makes a TON of difference in the meaning! )

 

[cockpitbob]

Have 3 different soldering iron tips:
* Tiny tip for surface mount components or other fine work.
* Medium tip for day to day work.
* Big fat tip for when you need to put a lot of heat into something big.

 

[ToddDubya]

I've got a Hakko. They're popular in the hobbyist world (i.e. Arduino nerds). I was trying to decide between the Hakko and the Weller and went with the Hakko. It's not meant for production type use but I'm not on an assembly line and it does everything I need for a lower price than the Weller. Honestly it could have gone either way.

http://www.amazon.com/Hakko-FX888D-...&ie=UTF8&qid=1455645316&sr=1-1&keywords=hakko

Do yourself a favor and get 63/37 lead. It's so much easier to use than lead free.

 

[allen-1]

When you solder, basic concept is that you heat the element that you're soldering and flow the solder onto it. You don't melt the solder and let it drip onto the element - that's how you get "cold joints". Pick the soldering iron and tip appropriate for the job.