soldering foil inductors

[awsjr]

can anyone lend any advice on using and soldering foil inductors like alpha core or jantzen ?

thanks -Al

[boom3]

I've never had any problem soldering to them. Just tin the bare part of the lead well, let it cool and wrap your wires to the rest of the crossover tightly around the tinned portion. Wrap fine solder around these bundles, heat until the solder flows and the rosin cooks off, and your're done. You don't want to pre-heat these inductor leads, as I recommend with gold bananna plugs, since you might melt the plastic jacket or the layers between the windings. I normally solder short leads to inductors (any type) and then bring those leads to a terminal strip to join up with the rest of the crossover. I like Euro style conector strips. Heritage line has usually used screw-type barrier strips.

[popbumper]

You need to "pre-tin" the ends; lay the soldering iron flat along the material, and feed the solder into the hot iron as it touches the foil. The solder should flow onto the foil as it is heated. Don't worry about melting the plastic insulation, you would have to be using an enormously heavy solder iron or blowtorch to get the temp hot enough to affect the plastic.

Once the material is pretinned, bring it close to the attachment point (another wire or solder pad) that also has been wetted with solder. IF both materails have been pre-tinned, heating them up will help join them easily, especialy if you feed more solder in as they touch.

Chris

[awsjr]

excellent info Chris....just what I was looking for....thanks -Al