Solder or Crimp for Anderson plugs?

I have always soldered

I use an 8 tonne hand held crimper and find it works very well, quick and easy, set came with selection of size mandrels. Have done a lot of Anderson plugs with it and no issues so far. Have also used it for joining larger wires with AL barrel crimps as well. It was a $40 eBay one. Friend also borrows it and prefers it from how he used to solder his. Not having a go at what Stephen does and I am sure soldering works fine as well.

The video analysis was interesting.

I sometimes use two mandrels to get a very tight crimp. Not sure if that would make much difference.

I solder because I don't have a crimper that big.
Yes, crimping is the preferred method as the solder can make the joint too rigid and lead to the wires breaking if they flex over time, but on the other hand I fix one of the connectors firmly to the vehicle structure so there is no movement.

On the removable connector, if if flexes and the wires fracture, I can still do a field repair by stripping back the wires, re-melting the solder, pulling the bits out of the solder pool and plugging the freshly cleaned end back into the solder pool (with some more added of course).

His measurement of resistance is complicated and ridiculous - he should be using a much higher current and spear the cables to measure voltage drop - that will determine whether any resistance is relevant to the application.
I use a portable tyre pump to test resistance - it draws 25A and I typically find around 0.01V drop across a connected pair of anderson plugs - so the resistance he is measuring is insignificant and irrelevant.

In years gone by I used to measure the voltage drop across various high current DC connectors and wiring - all to do with making RC cars go faster, so its something I've measured a lot.

I only crimp these days. I have repaired many an anderson plug where the soldering was inadequate or where solder had wicked up the wire and broke the cable. I only ever use tinned cable for connections exposed to the elements because it won't corrode as much as straight copper cable.

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HAhaha Bigfish. Nice try at controversy. And it will probably work too!

That video was well presented and possibly believable. But flawed.
As I said in that earlier thread on Multiple Anderson Circuits, it has been well established in industry including aero and military that crimped terminations are superior to soldered. But, as usual, someone has gone to a lot of trouble to appear to have superior knowledge and collect Brownie Points for self gain.

The moment that I saw the demonstrated resistance of the crimped joint I knew that it was either faked or poorly performed. There is no way that a properly executed crimp would produce the display of resistance. Either the cable was undersized for the Anderson pin or the incorrect crimp dies were used or the tool was not fully crimped. If properly done that result could not happen. With a good quality tool, especially a hydraulic one, the compression is such that the wire strands and the lug body form a cold weld with molecular bonding. The whole assembly becomes a homogenous mass such that there is no interface to produce an electrical resistance. Either the producers of that video were totally incompetent or they set out to deceive the viewer. The video did not present proof, merely a flawed demonstration. A person with engineering competence would immediately perceive the results as being beyond likelihood and investigate the reason. They were deceitful or not competant. Possibly both!

Certainly, the presenter was able to produce the "Cardinal Sin" that I spoke of earlier where he allowed solder to deposit on the contact face of the Anderson pin. His attempt to remedy the situation would have been ineffective as the silver or tin plating would be still be coated with solder which is an undesirable situation.
Crimping followed by soldering is totally unnecessary……. UNLESS… the crimp was poorly performed because the soldering, if done well, would then salvage the job.

Something that seems to be often omitted from this subject is the possibility of corrosion affecting the joint. A properly made joint, soldered or crimped, should not allow ingress of moisture to the actual joint, but the exposed copper wire between the insulation and the joint is at risk of corrosion. In all cases it is desirable to prevent this by applying glue-lined heat-shrink tubing from over the insulation to over the pot section of the lug or pin.

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I must say….. in this debate of solder vs crimp, what of all the soldered joints that were made before the advent of crimp lugs and tools? Did they all eventually fail? Are none of them still in use?
And I think that I have seen more poorly made crimps than soldered. Sure, some of those soldered ones didn't look too good but they worked. However, a crimp that looks nasty is almost certain to be dodgy.

Interesting video, the man clearly doesn't understand the reasoning behind a crimped lug.
If he can get solder into what he is calling a crimped joint he hasn't produced a crimped joint. He has distorted a lug.
A correctly crimped joint is airtight, there's no way he'd be getting solder into it.
The whole process requires three things to be correctly matched, the lug, the cable and the tool. If anyone is a mismatch the resulting "crimp" won't be a crimp.
Cutting open a correctly crimped joint will show a solid copper bar, absolutely no sign of individual strands or the lug to cable boundary.

I'll readily accept that a proper crimp is better than solder. However, I've had at least three professionally applied crimps fail. I don't have the tools to crimp, and am pretty content to flood solder the cables I make up, and so far, the darn things have stayed together.

For smaller wire I heat the terminal and melt solder into it till it's nearly full then put the wire in.
For larger wire I crimp it with 3mm wide crimpers that are designed for blue/yellow terminals about half way down that secures the cable but there is still a gap for solder to run past and fill the terminal. My thinking may be odd but if it gets very hot for some reason and the solder happens to melt it's still crimped.

The trouble with Anderson plugs is finding the right size wire.
The Anderson has 16mm2 lugs…..most cable you buy is 6 B&S , which is 13.5mm2…the wrong size for the lug unless you’re going to use an indent crimper.
Which is why I solder.

Hi bigfish, I personally only solder. I started soldering joins over 40 years ago after coming across failed crimped joins. I have never had a failed soldered join. While I know some people prefer crimping, on an Anderson plug I believe you need to have the proper crimping tool to get an effective join, as the walls of the plug pins are quite thick. Most people don’t have the correct crimping tool for these plugs.
On another note, when I bought my boat, I found I was getting huge voltage drops and suspected some of the crimped joins at fault. As I cut them off and stripped back the wire, I found the deterioration of the wire due to water wicking was such that I had to replace every bit of wire. I replaced it all with tinned wire as that's all I use for any 12v stuff. IMHO soldering not only gives a larger surface contact area within the join, it also assists with sealing the wire from water wicking, although I also use heat-shrink on every join, including Anderson plug pins.

Quality of the crimp terminals themselves is important too. I recently had some double sleeve type yellows crimps I purchased from a brand name that were really bad. Crimped them and just couldn't get them to hold. Threw them in the bin and got a batch off another supplier and problem solved.

Regarding soldering, personally I would never heat a pool of solder in a lug and then just plunge the cable into it. I would always heat the cable and the lug at the same time and then add solder while heating. A few years back I helped a guy who had issues with an Anders plug, the lug looked like it was perfectly soldered but was actually testing open circuit between the cable and the lug, a perfect dry joint.

The below video even though a bit rough confirms what I'm saying, plunging results in the outer strands being soldered and the inner not due to the cable acting as a heat sink.

Connection test

From Anderson Power:

"Cable strands should be separately fluxed with rosin paste, and the contact should be held in a vise with the barrel end facing up. Apply heat to the outside of the barrel while the solder flows in beside the wire strands"

In other words heat both the lug and the cable together then solder.

I crimp. More out of necessity than preference. Though all my avionics tech mates told me that solder can reduce the ability of the cable to flex at the joint and break the wire (plus solder adds weight to aircraft...).

A hint for those using 50A Andersons with smaller cables is to fill the back of the assembled Anderson with hot glue (like potting). It helps stabilise the wires but can be dug out if needed. Hot glue gun <$10.00

Amazing the amount of time and energy wasted on this topic over and over again.
Hint, you will never get an absolutly perfect anything in this world much to the dismay of the hundreds of armchair experts out there.
Just fit the bloody plug and use it, even if it isnt the perfect size cable crimped with a hydraulic crimper and duel wall heatshrink perfectly applied it will most likley last longer than you need it to, unless you are totally out of your league with wiring then you should get someone else to fit it, because internet forums will just confuse you more.
If you dont know how to solder then crimp, if you dont know how to crimp either then dont attempt it.

Rant over, for a couple of weeks when this question is asked yet again.