Simple ways for person with no soldering skills, to connect two wires together?

CuriousOne

Hello.

I have a friend, for which I built a specific device. It connects to his camera flash with 4 wires. All these wires are readily available inside his flash, and does not contain high voltage, so it should be reasonably safe for non-skilled person to connect some wires to it. The question is, how he can do it? He has no soldering gun/skills/etc. Wires are short enough, so they can't be pulled out, to strip the insulation. I have seen a special on wire clips, mainly used in automotive, where you place two wires into jacket, snap it, and blades cut insulation and connect wires together. Are such connectors available in miniature size, or maybe there may be any other simple solution?

RDL2004

Conductive glue exists. It may be worth checking out.

Google "wire glue"

CuriousOne

Yes, but wires already have insulation, and stripping it is the problem too.

davejames

How short is "short"?

Are the wires in question solid or stranded? If stranded, you might be able to carefully insert a small length of 30AWG bare wire into the strands of one wire, and then gently (carefully) bend the wire over and insert it into the other wire making sure the exposed 30AWG area is small. Then "blob-solder" the two together.

Did that make sense?

I've not seen the self-biting clips mentioned in small sizes...but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Digikey? Mouser?


:frown:...well, now that a picture has been posted I see that my suggestion is totally irrelevent. Yeah - I agree with the others: have someone do the work for your friend.

Mike Green

Your friend is going to have to learn how to solder and how to strip wires. You can use heat to strip wires, but it's tough in close quarters and it depends on the type of insulation. Yes, there are clips, but they need thicker wire. There are other sorts of "insulation displacement" connectors, but they need more wire length than it sounds like you have. Good luck!

prof_braino

Simplest, cheapest, fastest way: Find someone who DOES know how to strip and solder wires, and get that person to do it. When in doubt, get an experienced professional. Most other solutions will take significantly longer, be of poor quality, and/or be disproportionally expensive.

Just pay a guy and have it done right and be finished.

LoopyByteloose

This may not be the best project to get started with as it seems that it is rather 'high stakes' if it doesn't work out well.

I do know the clips that you mention for automotive wiring. They are very popular with trailer rental outfits as they allow them to connect into the tail lights and the brake lights involved in the existing car wiring without much effort. But they really are not the best solution ... just quick and easy.

You camera flash wiring is smaller and in a more tight space. Quality is more of an issue. Good wiring is both about good connections and good insulation. Those clips on the automotive wiring break existing insulation, but don't reseal it against moisture.. a big issue in automotive use.

To start out.
Consider what size wire you want to use 22 gage or 12 gage.
Can you cleanly bring wires out of the camera flash and then do the rest of your work outside?
Can you insulate your work inside the camera flash (with hot glue or epoxy or silicone or shrink wrap)?

If you are feeling a strong 'NO', maybe modifying this is not realistic.

Mods to existing technology become easier with experience. I now do things I would not dare to do 10 years ago. But the experience includes a lot of discovery by making things that didn't work or damaging items in ways that could have been avoided.

Can you avoid all and any heat damage to the camera flash while connecting wires?

By the way, no those automotive connectors are not made for smaller wire. But there is a snap connector for splices in telephone wire at about 22 gage. I have no idea of the gage or how appropriate these would be to the insides of a camera flash.. the telephone wire clips expect solid wire... not stranded. I don't think using them would be a good idea as insulation can make one think the wire is much thicker and more solid than it really is.

You might just find a second junker to practice on before you ruin a good piece of equipment... and maybe a friendship.

mindrobots

Have your friend send you the flash (or visit if local). You hook it up and test it since you've built it for him and then return the flash (or send him on his way if local). If he has no experience/skills and you expect him to hook it up, then you expect to talk him through any troubleshooting or corrective actions over the phone? Has the device been built and connected to the type of flash he has? Has it been fully tested so any issues would be solely wiring? Id the wiring bullet proof - if he hooks it up wrong, will the device survive? Will his flash survive?

Can you find a jack and plug that would allow you to install the jack in his flash and the plug on your device and then he can plug/unplug as needed? (or some other suitable connector scheme)

Having/expecting him to solder it just sounds like a lot of trouble that could/should be avoided.

RDL2004

Have your friend send you the flash (or visit if local). You hook it up and test it since you've built it for him and then return the flash (or send him on his way if local).

Best idea yet.

First Class package shipping is pretty cheap, and if it's too heavy for that then it's probably a very expensive flash unit and worth the few extra bucks for Priority Mail.

CuriousOne

Thank everyone for the replies. Here are the answers.

I'm including the photo of flash guts for reference. You can see wires on top side going into other part of the flash. He needs to connect in parallel to orange, brown, red and black wires. The device I've built for him is completely standalone, and small enough (contains double sided PCB with two SOIC-16 IC's on both sides) to fit inside the flash (I have similar flash and already did the mod). I've immersed assembled device into liquid electrical tape, so only wires go outside now.

Sending flash via mail may seem to be the good idea, but problem is that I'm in Georgia and he's in Australlia. And since flash we're modding costs less than postage (and it is old and heavy), sending it... well, I consider it as last resort, if no solution found.

And for the jack & plug. The flash already has jack, but plug for it is proprietary and costs 3x more than flash itself

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Minolta-OC-1100-flash-cord-/121177792608?pt=Camera_Flash_Accessories&hash=item1c36c26060

Mike Green

Best solution (as mentioned) is for your friend / client to find someone locally who would be willing to do the work for a fee. It's a simple enough task, but not for a beginner. Solderless connectors, even if made for wires this size, are bulky. I'm not sure you could fit 4 of them in the space shown with the length of the wires shown.

lanternfish

Hi CuriousOne. I realise from your earlier post(s) that there is very little length to strip the four wires though I have the following suggestion.

Maybe your friend could very carefully pare away a small section of insulation on each wire using a fine scalpel and a jewellers loupe/magnifying glass. Your friend would only need to pare away a couple of millimeters.
Once this is done they could then tightly wrap the stripped end of the new wire around the existing wire.
The join can be insulated with a carefully placed blob of hot glue (applied/manipulated with a pin).

This is extremely fiddly and requires a good deal of patience but it can be done.

LoopyByteloose

Gawd!!!! Why not use a real wire stripper if it can get into tight spaces and do the job better? Use one that has several sizes in round profiles.

You can likely use it to push aside the insulation for 1/8th to 1/4 inch, wrap another wire around and solder. Then cover it with a dab of silicone for insulation.

I do understand that there is a plug you don't want to buy.
And there is postage you don't want to pay.
But if you don't want to buy tools and materials as well or pay someone who has them.... it seems as if you are looking for a problem more than a solution.

Practice the mid-wire stripping before you do the real thing on some scrap wire. When in doubt, assume the existing copper wire is bigger than it is as nicked insulation will usually seperate without going all the way down to the copper.

Who's gonna do it? Paid or unpaid? I dunno, we can't push a techie through the internet to rescue people. At least not yet.

CuriousOne

This is a non-commercial project, the friend came up with idea, and I did it in hardware. This is advanced optical slave trigger for old, film-age minolta camera flashes, to allow their ussage with modern digital cameras. As most photographers in the world, my friend also has little knowledge in soldering or electrical wiring. But the circuit might be usable for other photographers, if it will be simpler to install it.

Heater.

This simplest way for a person with no soldering skills to connect such wires together is to get some soldering skills.

It's not as if it was rocket surgery or expensive.

Plus, once they have got going they will realize all the other things they could be doing with their new found skill. Soon they will be wondering how they managed to live such a long an miserable life without a hot soldering iron permanently in hand. Perhaps Propeller projects will start blossoming forth and a whole new world opens up for them...

Spoon feeding is not doing them a service.

LoopyByteloose

I realize that you want to help someone at a distance, and for low cost. Living in Taiwan I generally tell people NOT to send me things as the shipping is often more than the value of the item.

For instances, I just ordered a used book from the USA for less than $20 USD, and I have to pay $20 in shipping. It took me several months to decide to buy it... and a lot of shopping locally. This is just the global reality... things from afar create either more costs or other problems.

And I have friend in San Francisco that is 77 and needs Linux reinstalled on her eeePC, but she doesn't want to pay anything and gets angry and frustrated when the discussion turns to doing-it-herself. She has gone to local Linux User Group meetings, but they are equally put off by her helplessness. I can send her LiveCDs, but it is nearly impossible to talk her through the installation.

One last option

You might be able to use a screw connector or a crimp connector of some sort. But I suspect you will have to cut the wires, strip the ends in preparation. Then bunch the three ends together and secure. Can you find something appropriate and mail it to the other person for less than $2 ?

People here are recommending soldering because it is a durible, low resistance connection... probably the best over time.

Using clips, screw connectors, or crimp connectors can work, but they are higher resistance and often more subject to problems over time. But, at some point you are going to have to cut into the wires to determine the wire size and what might work. That is pretty much a point of no return.

We all run into the reality that the manufacturers do their best to NOT allow the user to modify a device. They would much rather have you buy a new one from them.

mindrobots

I think Heater. has the best solution. Help them find a learn to solder kit and a descent soldering iron locally and let them learn to solder, I can't remember not knowing how to solder so it must not have been too hard to learn and it sure opens possibilities.

It sounds like the flash units are cheap enough that even if he messes one up learning it's not a big deal.

CuriousOne

I've been told by another person, that snap connectors with insulation displacement do exist in compact sizes. Smallest one that person had seen was for 4 wires, and usually used for flat cable interconnections (looks much like IDE/ATAPI cable). He'll try to find if he still has one somewhere, to identify the manufacturer.