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Is it safe to use a soldering gun to splice power supply cables?

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First post, by mr_bigmouth_502

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I need to extend the 4pin auxiliary connector on the power supply in my main rig so that I can actually fit it inside my case. Since I'm broke and have more time then sense, I've decided to steal a bit of the cabling from another, older power supply I had in an Athlon 64 box. I cut the cable just to the point where I would have enough to splice a few inches of it into my main PC's power supply cable, and I want to reconnect what remains of the cables on the older power supply.

My main problem is, I'm terrible at soldering and for the last few years that I've been doing it I've had a habit of lazily making cold solder joints, by melting the solder directly on the iron and spreading it on the cables I'm splicing. I want to solder this thing the proper way though, by actually heating the wires to the point where I can touch the solder to them and melt it on. I can't seem to achieve this with my 30 watt iron though, no matter how long I allow it to warm up, or how long I keep the iron on the cables. The cable gets hot, but seemingly not hot enough to even come close to melting the solder.

I'm tempted to use this old 100/140 watt soldering gun my grandfather gave me, but I'm worried that I might fry part of the power supply by using this thing, since I've read somewhere that soldering guns actually carry current at the tip.

Do you guys have any advice?

Reply 1 of 5, by Davros

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you want to join cables ?
use one of these - you can cut them to size
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Boxes_ … rips/index.html

Guardian of the Sacred Five Terabyte's of Gaming Goodness

Reply 3 of 5, by Jorpho

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mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

I'm tempted to use this old 100/140 watt soldering gun my grandfather gave me, but I'm worried that I might fry part of the power supply by using this thing, since I've read somewhere that soldering guns actually carry current at the tip.

Not sure about the current, but apparently they generate enough of a magnetic field to make them useful for degaussing. Considering that bulk erasers are also good for degaussing, you might want to keep them away from your hard drives, at least.

Reply 4 of 5, by Old Thrashbarg

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It takes a hell of a strong magnetic field to mess with the data on a hard drive. Far more than a soldering gun could create... even consumer-class tape erasers usually won't have any effect.

Soldering guns do carry a current at the tip, a very high current in fact... but at a very low voltage. You don't want to use it on PCBs with static sensitive components, though it puts out too much heat for such work anyhow. But for things like splicing power supply leads, it's fine. That's actually the sort of task it was designed for. I have an old '50s-era 240/300W Weller that I use for such things.

Reply 5 of 5, by mr_bigmouth_502

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Old Thrashbarg wrote:

It takes a hell of a strong magnetic field to mess with the data on a hard drive. Far more than a soldering gun could create... even consumer-class tape erasers usually won't have any effect.

Soldering guns do carry a current at the tip, a very high current in fact... but at a very low voltage. You don't want to use it on PCBs with static sensitive components, though it puts out too much heat for such work anyhow. But for things like splicing power supply leads, it's fine. That's actually the sort of task it was designed for. I have an old '50s-era 240/300W Weller that I use for such things.

That's the kind of definitive answer I've been looking for. 😁 Thanks.

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