Originally Posted by bluechucky

marine, could you please elaborate on the "bird-caging" term? Never heard of it.

Originally Posted by marine6680

That example can never happen, (on new components) the only time I see something like that is when the component is VERY dirty, and the flux can not do its job. In those cases, the solder doesn't even begin to stick to the components and the wire would not make a connection and when you clean the sticky flux away it comes loose. Trust me, you WILL know if the wire is not connected. To get so much corrosion that you have that problem, you would need to soak the connector is salt water for months.

Flux can not mix with metal, there will never be a mixture of flux and solder. Flux will remove the oxides from the metal surface and leave fresh clean metal for the solder to stick to. The solder creates a molecular bond with the metal, that can not be separated again. When solder gets put on that shiny gold connector, it will forever remain silver looking, the solder will remain on there unless eroded away with something like sand paper. If you can see the solder flowing and sticking to the component, then you are fine. There is a reason why solders come with flux cores, flux is good.

Simply put: Flux will do its job and then get out of the way.

When the solder starts to stick to the component the flux will not get in the way. The molecular bond is much much stronger than the physical stickiness of the flux.



Bird-caging is when the individual wire strands of multi stranded wire (like that used in RC) separates from each other.

Take a piece of wire and strip an inch of insulation off the end, then twist the wire end the opposite way the strands are twisted together, they will start to separate and leave gaps between them, like the bars of a bird cage. It disturbs the natural "lay" of the wires and requires more solder to fill the gaps, this is a less efficient connection.

While solder is less conductive than copper, a solder connection (which is molecular) is far less restrictive than a mechanical type of connection. (crimp type like terminal lugs and splices or contact type like in battery/bullet connectors) Besides, the short distances we need the power to flow in an RC car means the difference in conductivity of different metals is not so important as it is in other areas, like power grids and precision equipment.