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Conductor repair
Former Community Member
I have come across an socket outlet which has had the insulation on a neutral wire repaired with heat shrink, it looks like the socket screw has damaged it previously. Would this be an acceptable repair?
The room temperature current rating of a properly made soldered joint between wires is limited by the rating of the wires. Only for joints where the overlap area is less than the cross-sections of the wires would you need to consider it at all. Normally the wires would but overlapping for several wire diameters - so for example a pair of 1mm2 cores would normally have a twisted overlap length of 5mm or more. In such case the solder is not the dominant influence.
It does however matter when connecting to devices that are designed to run very hot, say 150C or more, as at running temperatures approaching the 200C or so of the solder melting point, as this reduces the reserve of heating permitted to allow for current rating. In such cases we use special high temp solders or braze, and special high temperature semiconductors are in ceramic packages. The number of cases this applies to are limited to things like down well instrumentation of some oil fields, and a few things that get fired from a launcher. light reading
The room temperature current rating of a properly made soldered joint between wires is limited by the rating of the wires. Only for joints where the overlap area is less than the cross-sections of the wires would you need to consider it at all. Normally the wires would but overlapping for several wire diameters - so for example a pair of 1mm2 cores would normally have a twisted overlap length of 5mm or more. In such case the solder is not the dominant influence.
It does however matter when connecting to devices that are designed to run very hot, say 150C or more, as at running temperatures approaching the 200C or so of the solder melting point, as this reduces the reserve of heating permitted to allow for current rating. In such cases we use special high temp solders or braze, and special high temperature semiconductors are in ceramic packages. The number of cases this applies to are limited to things like down well instrumentation of some oil fields, and a few things that get fired from a launcher. light reading
