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Soldering Nichrome wire


mabuse00

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Chinese e matches are clearly (from the hundreds I've used) made by wrapping a strip of double sided PCB with a helix of nichrome wire and immersion soldering (inc pretreatment ) it Then chopping the board and attached spiral wire into 12mm by 4mm ish tapered pieces with a single half turn of wire on each piece.

 

Some European made igs have two wire ends simply crimped over a short straight (5mm ish ) length of resistance wire. This way the tip is lead free but they still solder the leads onto the body of the ig.

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Would a spot welder work better than using acid flux? I used acid flux and it soldered nichromes very nicely... My only complaint is that I can't seem to secure the wire prior to soldering...

 

I never got good solder joints, even with Ruby Fluid so for me, yes, spot welding was by far better but I regress. Buying them is by far cheaper in the long run.

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  • 5 months later...

Hi...as per my knowledge you should wrap the nichrome first, then gently crimp the nichrome into the copper with some micro serrated pliers. The nichrome as it is harder than copper gets pushed down into the copper and makes a connection that seems to work well for me. If you crimp too hard with the pliers you run the risk of shearing the nichrome if it is a fine gauge, pliers at the wrong angle,

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  • 10 months later...

Hi..i am a new user here. In my case I have never soldered my e-matches. I just wrap the nichrom around one of the connections several times, then do the same with other connection and there is no need to solder. Dip it in H3 with NC and you have a ematch quickly and cheaply.

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I'd think that the chlorate might, over time and with humidity, corrode the mechanical connection to the nichrome wire. Soldering would make the connection more reliable between dissimilar metals in a potentially corrosive environment.
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  • 3 weeks later...

Wire wrapping yielded unreliable igniters. It sucks to have one when you need something to go off and it doesn't (even worse if it was a staging igniter). It may work for a few days and then it would refuse to work after that.

 

Get acid based soldering paste used by plumbers. It will allow you to solder nichrome.

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I'd be sure to remove any lingering acidic Flux before applying any chlorate H3 based pyrogenic dip. Edited by PeteyPyro
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Has anyone considered small fishing 'leader ferrules' or 'leader sleeves' and just crimping? Or better yet twisting and crimping? They can be had for about $7/hundred domestically or only about $2/hundred delivered from Asia on Ebay, and a decent 'no name' crimp tool can be had for under $20, while cheap $5 crimpers are also available...

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  • 2 months later...
  • 3 years later...
Old topic, but try HCl (hydrochloric acid) & silver solder or just go the stay brite silver solder kit. Get a knife & scratch the nichrome first. Never had a problem with soldering nichrome this way.
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Thin Nichrome is best. What are you wanting to achieve?

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