Originally Posted by
marine6680
Yeah, heat can really kill them.
You might want to try not sniffing the flux too much.
A bigger tip is needing for such large wire. It really does come down to tip size, you have to overpower the wires tendency to wick heat away, bigger tips can dump heat into the wire faster. With the proper tip, you can tin the wire without getting the wire more than a little warm a couple inches down.
Also try using a little solder on the tip to help carry heat into the wire as well. And flux, make sure you use enough.
+1. I switched to a larger blade tip (1 size larger than stock on a Hakko 888) after reading this article (How to solder correctly (a not so brief lesson) Plus tips and more... ), and it made a huge difference in time and ease of soldering.