Thoughts on soldering this wire?

[kingofwylietx]

I have this automotive LED light that needs longer wires (red & black) soldered onto the board. I have a soldering iron, but am not very good with it.

Is there anything wrong with melting the solder on this board to remove the wires & then just try to put new wires back on it? In other words, is this a tricky thing that I need to take to a computer fix-it place? Can a solder monkey like myself do this in a horrible hap-hazard way without much chance of hurting the electronics?

 

[alphazeta]

If you don't want to mess with the potting, I personally would just cut into the existing wires & solder longer wires to the ends of them.

Wouldn't be pretty but sure would be the easiest.
AZ

 

[kingofwylietx]

That would normally be the way to go, but the problem comes from the wires being cut in error. They have been cut flush on the other side of the housing.

To extend them, I will have to remove the potting, solder extensions, then re-pot them. I am thinking, if I have to do all that anyways.....why not just replace them with longer ones.

 

[wyager]

It's fine to melt the solder to get the old wires off-then you just tin the new wires with some solder (aka melt some solder to them BEFORE you connect them to the LED) and then you simply touch that to the LED's solder pad and apply heat to it. They should meld together.

 

[Diesel_Bomber]

Clip the wires in the middle and solder longer wire between both ends. Then you don't have to deal with the potting at all.

 

[Headlighthomme]

There are plenty of websites which give excellent advice on soldering – here are two I found from a Google search: http://www.aaroncake.net/electronics/solder.htm and http://www.teamnovak.com/tech_info/how_to/solder/index.html . It's not hard to do when you learn correctly.

 

[kingofwylietx]

I've removed the potting and pulled the wire through, so it is loose now. Yesterday, I stopped at a computer repair shop. They will solder new wires on it and just charge for the time it takes. It will probably be $30, so I'll let them do it. I'm pretty confident that their soldering guy will do a much better job than me trying to learn on it. This will be exposed to a lot of vibration, so I really want a solid connection.

There is a small chance that I will just add length to the wires that are on it. I can do that for free.