Connectors or Solder

Though i am totally new to the mobile electronice field and wasnt very current on whats acceptable and not acceptable I do agree soldering is the way to go. I have been in the automotive repair side of the industry for many years and have made a few observations about various connections and splicing.

3M Scotchlok: What horrid little pieces of crap! The idea is decent, but not very effective. Almost every pickup i have had to diag that had tail light problems (ie blowing fuses, not working ext) had 1 other thing in common. It had a trailer hitch installed. Nuff said

T-Taps: To be honest, i have never seen them used, and if i have, i didnt know they were called t-taps, so i dont know for sure

Solder & Heatshrink: If you can do it, go for it! I would much rather not cut the wire and simply use electrical tape, but heatshrink is awesome. Probably the best i have seen so far was the type that the GM dealers use which when heated oozes a small ammount of glue out to seal and finalize the connection.

Butt Connectors: I was a fan of butt connectors simply because i thought they were alot faster than getting the soldering iron out and doing it that way. Boy was i dead wrong! Strip the wire back, solder it and tape! Much faster, Much more permenant, much more professional looking and (for shop owners and number crunchers) is cheaper in the long run.

Im no expert installer. Have probably 30 or so remote starts/alarms under my belt, and the bottom line is, solder is faster, safer, cheaper and forever, anything else is just a comeback waiting to happen! We have all had that "1" come back and bite us in the ass. Our fault or not, wouldnt you feel much better when the car rolls out of the shop knowing that you did the job correctly and professionally and never run the risk of a wire comming undone and catching the car on fire

Strip, poke, slip through and twist method: No brainer here. Your BEGGING for people to come back with problems! Why not take an extra 10 seconds and solder it up and tape it up instead of "I TRIPLE tape my connections! Run a hose clamp around that and squeeze it down to ensure nothing is comming loose and i wire-tie that so the screw wont back off!" though i suppose the installer who uses this method doesent need any wire strippers, they just use their teeth!!

Heh funny you should mention the twist and tape method. As alot of you know im a beginner, and this proved to be a BAD thing. Heh what were they thinking, take someone who is great at troubleshooting electronics, toss em under a dash and him be able to crank out remote starts in an hour?? YEP!

Kinda off topic but not 100%. There brilliant idea on making me "quicker" was to hire a guy who has done them before and show me the secrets of it.. you know... the "Go for the ignition wires over here instead of WAY up there" or "Theres a door lock module right there, why take off the kick panel" type thing. Would be kinda cool... if he was showing me things to make me faster instead of doing a crappy hack job and jamming them out. There is one thing that makes him about 1/2 hour faster than me, and really... he wouldnt be faster than me if I had just a TAD more experience doing them. He uses the wrap and tape method and I CANNOT STAND IT! His excuese is "I havent had one come back yet" and "Feel the wires where i taped them up, there not going anywhere".

I have put up a HELL of a fight about this install style and tho both owners of the company agree with me, we want to be soldering them, they both seem to be blinded by the $$$$$ because he takes less time. Less time staring at wiring diagrams, less time making connections.

Sorry... had to let some of that off... been bothering the sh*t out of me

BTW... soldering in tight places: I have found that if i cannot reach the wire with the soldering iron, I shouldnt be making ANY connection there. If you cant reach it with a soldering iron, how you gonna reach it to twist and poke... or how you gonna crimp the butt connector... not to mention... how you gonna tape it when your finished? If your not firmiliar with soldering... we use soldering irons, which are long and kinda skinny... like a 12inch screwdriver. 90% of the time... you have no troubles getting the iron onto the wire... and from there you just pull out enough solder and bend and twist it around to get you to the wire....