If only I’d found this thread a month ago … Considers stripping & resoldering EVERYTHING 
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So, I just read through this entire thread to see what I’ve been doing wrong if I have. Lots of good stuff. I do have one tip I picked up somewhere on here that isn’t mentioned.
When you’re soldering a wire to a connector, bullet or otherwise, it will make your life SIGNIFICANTLY easier if you tin your wire BEFORE stripping it. It maintains the size and shape of the wire, which makes it far easier to get it to fit.
I don’t think i had a wire lose it’s shape while tinning it. That’s why we twist the wires before tinning.
There’s also no way of telling how well the solder has spread out between the strands of wire. Did it go to all sides? How deep did it wick? You’ll know when you strip it.
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I should rephrase a bit. Since seeing someone mention that technique and adopting it I haven’t had to clean a ball of solder off my wires, or had any particularly shitty jobs like I was previously. It seems to wick onto the wire a lot cleaner. I’m also rather inexperienced at soldering, I haven’t been using flux, and I’ve been using pretty crap solder that came with my cheap as hell iron, but this technique has helped me out a lot as a total n00b. Also it seems to be quicker and takes less cleanup. Specifically with bullet connectors, which it seems a lot of other n00bs struggle with, it just seems to be a lot quicker and easier, for me with my crappy setup anyways.
I’m gonna redo most if not all of my connections after reading all this, for practice if not for safety.
Edit after reading your edit: this probably would not work well for larger wires, due to the not knowing how well it spread to the sides part. As for how deep, it’s probably BECAUSE of the lack of flux, but in the =>8awg wires I’ve been working with, I can pretty clearly feel how deep it goes as soon as it cools a bit.
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i eat while soldering in a poorly ventilated room and im alive, however im not very smart
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There it is ^^
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Ah this explains the concern i had. The method works best to just secure the wire, not to fully tin it.
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correction: I said I did not like this method, not true. Only on smaller wires under 14 ish AWG I rather just strip then tin.
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Yeah I use it only for the big stuff too
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bows thank you solder sensei’s. lmao.
i just saw it in passing and tried it and liked it. now that im a bit more well read on soldering techniques im gonna practice a whole bunch til my battery gets here.
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Could you edit the title to have “soldering guide” keyword? @PixelatedPolyeurthan
I wanted to say I realized the other day why the metal forceps are great compared to the ceramic tweezers. The reason is they have teeth so the wires do not slip out. I would love ceramic ones with serrated teeth so the wires can not slip.
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The little nickel strips were still transferring a fair amount of heat in some little tests i did, so i soldered these connections on top of a little heatsink
Not perfect, but definitely soaked away some of the heat
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I wanted to see how the joint looks under that black heat shrink
is it a single layer of shrink?
I think there were two layers. Battery gone now, hopefully never to be seen again
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So lead doesn’t vaporize as your soldering? Just the flux is the main issue. I heard leaded solder is better then lead free. Not sure just saw this and had me curious
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Yep, super common misconception. Ironically I don’t really have a fan, I just try not to breathe the flux fumes… they’re gross.
I should probably get a fume tube or something soon
either is bad because most of the time they’re flux core anyways
Hand to mouth with lead solder is the main toxicity part
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Thats good to know. I always had a misconception if lead free is better then with lead. Same time wondering if lead even vaporizes at temperatures above 700F but just turns out the flux is the main reason for all that smoke (i usually go 800 on my iron so it really melts the solder)
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Way better for me.
For bonding, leaded is
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leaded is a game changer
sadly its illegal in the uk so i get mine shipped from germany now 
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