i decided to stop by and pick up a soder iron from homedepot today - best 15 bucks ive spent in a while! they sell them for 8 bucks at radio shack, but they where close by the time i went there.

im instally my rearview camera tomoro hopefully, (it comes in tomoro, hopefully it wont be to dark) anyways, its a great tool to use, instead of twist caps to combine wires together, if only i had this when i was doing my tv and nav2go conversion! (btw if your asking what i had to soder for that, the diodes between wires to stop current from flowing towards my tailight when i flip a switch to activate the back manually).


pics soon!

 

best soldering iron i've ever had is the one I stole from my dad. it's one of those with the giant puke green bases with yellowed toggle switches for power and the giant a$$ spiral metal holder for the iron itself... looks like it's straight from eat block germany... it's awesome. gets so freaking hot so freaking fast. those cheapy ones at radio shack may get the job done, but if you ever plan on doing any notable amount of soldering, you will NOT regret spending good money on a good quality iron.

and those "cold tip" soldering irons aren't worth the plastic they are made out of

 

i completely agree.

i used to use crimp wires to make connections for my audio installs, but i've recently started using soldering and the connections are much more solid and sound quality is awesome

 

ya its a must... prob going to pick one of these up real soon

 

Solder iron, REAL wire strippers (scissors and teeth only go so far, but do work), really fine wire snippers. A nice set of electronics screw drivers.

Always makes it easier to do a job if you have the right tools..

-b

 

And heat shring... dont botch a good solder job by using electrical tape.

Lowes has some good heat shrink. The stuff that is very soft and plyable works better then the stuff that feels like a McDonalds straw.

Radio Shack has a good book on basic electronics with a section on soldering. In my past life I was a tech rep, and that book helped a LOT, shows proper ways to twist the wres and everything, how to use flux, how to solder / desolder PCB's (for the DD w/ dual climate converts).

I have a Whein (spelling?) butane soldering iron. But it doesnt use flame, it uses a catalyst in the tip to substain heat, very nice...

 

yeah heat shrink is great especially in places where your wires can be exposed. Plus it gives off a clean install. i did my install last week on the tvandnav2go, ps2 and back up camera, came out pretty good. Good luck on your install!

Here's the heat shrink in play if you notice at the kp unit where the wires are coming out I placed heat shrink around each individual wire to prevent moisture from hitting the connections.

 

Nice and clean

 

Yep, soldering iron, good wire strippers, a seperate wire cutter, and some colored heat shrink (red for pos, black for neg, some other color for other stuff) really make a difference in the overall final appearance of the install, and the ease of it, as well.

Dave