[TowerTalk] Amphenol PL259

[Pat Barthelow]

Yet another lifetime experience with PL-259s...
I am of the "use a  Black Diamond, heavy tip, 175 watt iron persuasion", (second only to crimp-on connectors) and like Pete, I found the fully hot, big stick of copper tip works well, even on the nickel plated connectors, though I file them, to brass if I have the luxury.

Two additional tricks I found; I made a 4 flat ~45 degree champfered chisel tip on the iron, which on mine, is about the diameter of a 7.62 mm bullet. If I clean and tin the tip, and hold it vertical (down) and apply a generous amount of "tinning" I get a big, near spherical "boule" of molten clean solder hanging from the chiseled tip.  Gently lower that boule right onto the PL-259 hole, where the boule perimeter perfectly meets the entire circumference simultaneously, and the boule perfectly applies massive heat to the perimeter of the hole, and most of the connnector so well, that it is probably only 2 seconds before at least 3 of the 4 holes and environs are plenty hot to instantly accept and melt applied solder through them.

As to tinning the braid, I have found that a perfect meticulous tinnng with minimal solder does such a perfect job, that the tinned, solder soaked braid sometimes has a clear air gap all the way around, inside and not touching the connector body, so no, or little conduction heating occurs, and there is a lot more metal mass in the braid (now) which has soaked up the tinning solder.  So it does not accept heat as well, and sinks a lot of heat before temp catches up to melt solder through the holes.  So I usually do not tin the braid, but leave the woven braid loose, or helped along with a spiral pre-twist in the direction that the connector is screwed on--
(carefully now, no free pieces to wander around ) which usually makes it expand slightly  to meet and touch the inside of the holes.  Then, when the hot tip-boule of clean, molten solder touches the hole, it also almost instantly is sucked up into the braid, and laps over, perfectly, onto the connector body at the hole.  The solder has to heat a lot less mass when the braid is not pre-tinned.

To keep tugging motions of the cable from breaking the many fine braid wire to solder interfaces over time, I am sure, prior to soldering, to twist hard by hand, the connector to the coax, so that the internal connector threads, engage, kinda cut their own threads on the cable jacket, limiting relative motion between the cable and the connector.

Of course, if I have my correct crimping tools and connectors with me, they win out EVERY single time.

All the best,   Pat Barthelow   AA6EG    Skype:  sparky599aa6eg at k6bj.org

Jamesburg Moonbounce Team

http://www.jamesburgdish.org






> Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:13:48 -0400
> To: towertalk at contesting.com
> From: pete.n8tr at gmail.com
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Amphenol PL259
> 
> At 01:33 PM 10/28/2008, Jim Brown wrote:
> 
> >I've installed lots of both nickel and silver-plated Amphenols, and I've
> >used the same scraping trick to solder to the nickels. The silvers are WELL
 > >WORTH the small additional cost. The LAST thing I want to do is apply any more heat than necessary and take the chance of melting a cable dielectric.  If an iron has a tip with appreciable thermal mass,  the connector heats up fast and the soldering of the holes can be done quickly.  I use a wet sponge  to cool the connector after soldering (I also tin the braid before inserting the cable into the connector).  I have installed many PL259's on to cables with both foam and solid polyethylene dielectric without any problems.
> 
> 73 Pete - N8TR