This are probably the cheapest grabbers around:
https://www.amazon.com/Mini-Grabber-Minigrabber-Color-Interface/dp/B00AH3OYGQ(and in many other places)
These are not very good in general, but for my specific project I found them to be perfect size. I have different other grabbers, so I did select them on purpose. (size matters!)
But I could not solder to them! I tried rosin flux, abrasive paper, aspirin, and nothing worked. The contacts still look nickel-based
I see some variants when they put a solderable rivet, but this is not what I want. The variant that I have was probably for crimping, but I still want to solder to it.
What are my options if I want to solder to this? I definitely want to try to use them in my project.
I attached some photos of how they usually look like, and photos of my failed soldering attempts.
I see some variants when they put a solderable rivet, but this is not what I want. The variant that I have was probably for crimping, but I still want to solder to it.
Why not crimp? It makes a good quality joint and is even used in aerospace applications.
What are my options if I want to solder to this? I definitely want to try to use them in my project.
If you can't solder and won't crimp, we can probably rule out glue; although, nanoparticle silver ink may work. It is expensive. Alternatively, use a battery tab welder to attach a thin nickel strip on the face to which you can solder.
I see some variants when they put a solderable rivet, but this is not what I want. The variant that I have was probably for crimping, but I still want to solder to it.
Why not crimp? It makes a good quality joint and is even used in aerospace applications.
Because it's usually more reliable. You solder a wire and it works for years without any issues.
Crimping requires attention, two metals will likely create galvanic pair and rust. I bet I cannot make it "aerospace quality" without tries and fails.
I was looking for something simpler.
What are my options if I want to solder to this? I definitely want to try to use them in my project.
If you can't solder and won't crimp, we can probably rule out glue; although, nanoparticle silver ink may work. It is expensive. Alternatively, use a battery tab welder to attach a thin nickel strip on the face to which you can solder.
I don't want to buy a spot welder just for this.
The nice thing about these grabbers is that they are extremely cheap. So I was hoping maybe for some flux (there are many and I don't know which one to try), or some special solder...
I will crimp if I don't have other reasonable options, but I still hope there is something simple that I am missing.
You could try an electroless plating with copper, tin, or gold.
You need to Google “soldering to spring steel” as that is your challenge here. Those cheap grabbers are spring steel and do not take solder easily. You will likely need quite an active acid flux which must be washed off after soldering to prevent corrosion. The brass eyelet is normally inserted by the manufacturer as a solder point. I have not seen these probes supplied without that eyelet fitted.
By the way..... those really cheap grabbers are often more effort than they are worth and it would be a good move to purchase some that are a little better if you want to avoid lots of ongoing hassle when using them. They are the cheapest of the cheap and not in a good way.
Fraser
You could try an electroless plating with copper, tin, or gold.
This is interesting. Thank you! I may try this.
You need to Google “soldering to spring steel” as that is your challenge here. Those cheap grabbers are spring steel and do not take solder easily. You will likely need quite an active acid flux which must be washed off after soldering to prevent corrosion. The brass eyelet is normally inserted by the manufacturer as a solder point. I have not seen these probes supplied without that eyelet fitted.
Well, I probably do not want too active flux
But thank you for the information, I'll google it.
Thank you!
By the way..... those really cheap grabbers are often more effort than they are worth and it would be a good move to purchase some that are a little better if you want to avoid lots of ongoing hassle when using them. They are the cheapest of the cheap and not in a good way.
We'll see
Because it's usually more reliable. You solder a wire and it works for years without any issues.
Crimping requires attention, two metals will likely create galvanic pair and rust. I bet I cannot make it "aerospace quality" without tries and fails.
I was looking for something simpler.
It's not more reliable. It's very unreliable in any application where wire will be bent near to solder joint. This includes vibration.
Crimping requires attention, two metals will likely create galvanic pair and rust.
Crimping requires you to not to mismatch connector, wire and tool. And to not use very crappy connectors. Other than that it's much easier to make a crappy solder joint.
And frankly those grabbers are complete trash. They simply do not hold on what they grab. I suggest looking for NOS or used HP/Agilent/Keysight grabbers on ebay.
Because it's usually more reliable. You solder a wire and it works for years without any issues.
It's not more reliable. It's very unreliable in any application where wire will be bent near to solder joint. This includes vibration.
the problem is not the soldering, the problem is the "bending", so dont bend it or solder at point where the wire will not get bent directly on solder joint. bending on crimp joint will not prohibit from wire break. btw, this grabber is my favourite compared to Tektronix or Uni-T since it can grab soic IC pin easily without shorting the next pin, the metal can straightened up and difficult to grab, the fix is bend it back with a tweezer. i havent tried my HP grabber, i think if it has those flat metal tip instead of round metal, it should perform as well. granted the cheap grabber is soft metal and non fire resistance plastic, but i can make it work. its more difficult to make work Tektronix grabber to grab soic or smaller pitched pin.
Because it's usually more reliable. You solder a wire and it works for years without any issues.
It's not more reliable. It's very unreliable in any application where wire will be bent near to solder joint. This includes vibration.
the problem is not the soldering, the problem is the "bending", so dont bend it or solder at point where the wire will not get bent directly on solder joint. bending on crimp joint will not prohibit from wire break.
Did you never hear that solder wicks into the wire and hardens it, thus making it brittle in the point where hard part borders with soft part. There is no such issue with crimping
bending on crimp joint will not prohibit from wire break.
It will be orders of magnitude more robust than soldering though.
I have had success in the past soldering to tricky substrates by using Hydrobromic acid as a flux. I was discussing this with a colleague just the other day and he was saying he'd done the same using hydrochloric acid. Very easy to get hold of as brick cleaner or toilet cleaner. It will be very aggressive though so don't use your best soldering iron tip, and don't breathe the fumes!!!!!!!!
I'll add though that this converstion with my colleague was because we were discussing the 'X-Y Problem':
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problemI've worked at a university running electrical/electronics workshops for years. I was using this exact thing as an example. Students often come to me to ask how to solder to difficult substrates like stainless steel or aluminium. Usually after they've spent a decent amount of time themselves trying. in 99% of cases, a few probing questions reveal that soldering the thing is their 'Y' and a much better way of achieving their 'X' is to use a crimp ring terminal then screw it to a tapped hole in the substrate.
I'd second others' suggestions that I'd look for a way to crimp/screw/clamp a wire to this rather than solder.
I sometimes use 0.8 or 1mm stainless wire for MIG welding as a cheap resistive wire.
By heating it red to anneal it, it becomes malleable and can be formed into a spiral.
To solder on its ends with tin - lead, I use the following process:
I apply with a torch a layer of 40% silver brazing filler, with the appropriate flux.
Tin-lead solder adheres very well to silver alloy.
I see some variants when they put a solderable rivet, but this is not what I want.
Just out of curiosity, why not?
I see some variants when they put a solderable rivet, but this is not what I want.
Just out of curiosity, why not?
me too curious. maybe the solderable rivet like mine is wire popping out from the middle back make it harder to press the grabber without pinching the wire to the side, this is the reason sometime the wire got broken. i'll mod my grabber next time i diy my unused stock, drill hole from the side so wire will pop out from there. i saw those crimp type grabber earlier while browsing mini grabbers, but i dont like them because the crimp metal is popping out from plastic, not good for higher voltage work, now thanks to OP for telling more about its drawback. to OP, may i suggest cleaning or sanding the metal, redo soldering with flux and higher temperature iron and be patient until the metal really absorb the heat and blend with solder. ymmv.
But I could not solder to them! I tried rosin flux, abrasive paper, aspirin, and nothing worked. The contacts still look nickel-based
I see some variants when they put a solderable rivet, but this is not what I want. The variant that I have was probably for crimping, but I still want to solder to it.
What are my options if I want to solder to this? I definitely want to try to use them in my project.
You can solder many alloys with a high-activity flux like those used for stainless steel, here are two options but results may depend on the alloy:
1) phosphoric acid based flux like this :
https://soldersandfluxes.co.uk/p1324/S26-Stainless-Steel-Flux.html2) flux based on zinc chloride/hydrochloric acid :
https://superiorflux.com/stainless-steel-soldering-flux/I used (1) to solder several "exotic" alloys (like nickel-chrome alloys) and it worked well.
Its generally better to crimp those parts. The solder have not only the attribute to flow under pressure, it hardened the braid as well, so at each movement the end of the solderded wire bend itself and after very short time it will break.
I just looked at your pictures again and remembered how wires are attached to your type of grabber and it is really nasty, in keeping with the cheap nature of the item. The wire is wrapped around the ‘dog bone end’ shaped protrusion at the top of the grabber and then normal solder is applied to the white. The solder coats the wire and holds it in place on the ‘dog bone’. The solder does not wick onto the grabbers metal and the connection is anything but stable. It is is a sort of bastardised ‘wire wrap’ idea ! I have seen this myself in a cheap set of grabbers supplied with a cloned Logic Analyser unit. The connections at the grabber ends were terrible and the copper wire used was so few thin copper strands that they broke easily. Total rubbish basically.
If I had to use such nasty grabbers I would spot weld some battery tag nickel strap to them with my battery tag welder. A simple tag welder can be made using a car battery and copper probes or heavy duty large value capacitors. The nickel or nickel plated steel used for a battery tag may be easily soldered and a small piece of it spot welded to the grabber would give you a point to which solder would flow and bond.
Fraser
You have received much good advice here. If you want to proceed with your grabbers anyway, and don't want to use an active acid flux there is one more thing you can try which may work for you.
First tin the probe contact surface by applying heat, solder and actively abrading the surface with sandpaper or a file. If using sandpaper roll or fold it into a thick piece so you don't burn yourself. If using a file, pick one you don't care about because it is at risk of damage (and also will be hot). Welders gloves aren't a bad idea.
This isn't always successful, but other than requiring four hands it does work fairly often. After you have the surface tinned you can solder your wire as usual.
Looks more like galvanized steel. Nickel plating should look much more polished. Anyway it appears to me that your not sustaining the heat enough to solder . All your heat is being sinked away . How many watts is your soldering iron ? Just wondering but I could be wrong .
hi,
liming the metal can help a lot, usually you have to insist a little bit with good flux and powerfull soldering iron
soldering this is the only way, other methods are just bla-bla-bla
Try degreasing the steel with oil-free contact cleaner then rubbing it with a Q-tip dipped with strong copper sulphate solution with a trace of dish detergent (to aid wetting) to 'flash' plate it with a solderable copper layer. Rinse it to remove residual copper and iron sulphates, pat dry and immediately solder it. Afterwards lightly spray with a contact cleaner lubricant to replace the trace oil film that may be all that's stopping the spring steel from flash-rusting if it isn't a stainless grade.
YMMV as the solderable copper layer's adhesion may not be as good as one would like so it can fail to wet if it flakes as the solder touches it. Once soldered its OK as the copper plating is thin enough to entirely dissolve in the solder leaving a solder to steel joint.
Much help offered in this thread and interesting comments. However...... so much effort needed when just sourcing a more solder friendly grabber would make the situation so much simpler
If you have time to waste and great patience, fine. Otherwise, source other grabbers as these solder unfriendly types cheapness is quickly offset by the hassle and time needed to make use of them.
I have similar grabbers, although can't guarantee that the material is exactly the same.
I was able to solder to them with a bit of heat and activated colophony flux
BTW, I soldered pin headers to them rather than cables.
I don't have any copper sulphate handy at home so I just dipped the tab of the probe contact in some copper chloride PCB etchant for about ten seconds, washed it, wiped it off then soldered it. It soldered like any other bright copper surface, almost instantly wetting, with no extra flux required.
Don't use copper chloride if you can get copper sulphate as chloride contamination may cause future rusting.
There's an opportunity here for a Cantonese speaking entrepreneur:
Find the factory that makes this style of grabber and order a batch in the ten colours of the electronics color code, with the tabs plated tin over copper, or the whole contact assembly gold plated. Resell at a considerable markup as 'easy solder mini-grabbers' in packs of 20 mixed or 10 by colour.
I have similar grabbers, although can't guarantee that the material is exactly the same.
I was able to solder to them with a bit of heat and activated colophony flux
BTW, I soldered pin headers to them rather than cables.
I had a similar experience with these pretty terrible grabbers. Got a pack of 10, two wouldn't take any solder at all, the rest did, but took some roughing up with fine sandpaper and some flux. I have no idea what the metal is, or if it is copper underneath, but most of them soldered reasonably well. I have no idea about the two odd ones.