soldering a wire to a nickel plated terminal

[adtchad]

Hello,
We are having solder flow problems on a nickel plated battery terminal. Using flux is not helping until the terminal is heated a lot. This takes a lot of time, with not very nice solder results. Any ideas on how to pre-clean will be appreciated.

Thanks,
Alfonso Del Toro
CHAD Therapeutics.

 

[Metalguy]

Sounds like you're using rosin flux. Can you try an acid flux and wash it off later?

 

[unclesyd]

Soldering to nickel plate, unless electroless nickel, should not be a problem. As stated by "Metalguy" an acid flux would do the trick, but the neutralizing the flux could be a problem.

I would check with the nickel plater and see if he is putting any seal/coating on the nickel plate. I don’t think this would be a problem on a battery terminal, though stranger things have happened..

Check with the solder vendor and see what his recommendations are for your particular application. Ask for a complete package, flux, solder, cleaner.

Also there is some technique involved if the parts have different heat sinks.

One thing that I’ve seen is the iron doesn’t have the wattage necessary for the job.

 

[aviat]

The site below recomends plating with a metal more conductive to soldering first. If the wire you are soldering is small, you could consider using a crimp type lug similar to what is used on thermocouple wire, and crimping to the wire and then attached to the terminal by a tapped screw.

http://www.johnsonmfg.com/temp/J35TX.htm

http://www.indium.com/application_notes/97774.pdf

 

[hacksaw]

soldering to nickel plated wiring components is not new, commonly used in high temperature wiring.

contact your solder supplier. there are non-corrosive fluxes available for your purpose. for example

http://www.kester.com/faq_solderability.html

courtesy of the eng-tips search engine. search time 0.05 seconds....

 

[tomwalz]

How are you cleaning before soldering? As an experiment try spraying it with oven cleaner (the casutic saponifies the oils and greases. Once they are turned into soap they come off completely with rinsing and wiping.

Tom