Soldering Wires to Motors

[fox46]

Make sure you have a good quality soldering iron, not one of those 20W soldering pens because the key do doing this successfully (and without ruining your motor) is to do it fast and getting the solder to tin (cover with solder and allow it to wick into) the wire properly. Tin your wire with plenty of solder and make sure it has wicked into the strands nicely- not a cold blob on top of the wire strands. If you have trouble doing this you need a more powerful soldering iron before attempting the next step. Then tin the terminal on the motor and let it cool. You must be very careful how much heat and for how long you apply it to the motor contacts as they can melt the plastic insulation/brush assembly. Place your tinned wire next to the tinned contact and press the soldering iron on top of the wire. The idea here is that the wire has a higher heat capacity than the motor so you want to melt the solder on the wire before the contact. Then once the solder in the wire and on the contact are molten, wiggle the wire a bit for the two masses of molten solder to join nicely and then let it cool while holding the wire in place.

Don't forget to carefully curl the wire back toward the front of the motor and secure it to the motor case with a tie wrap to prevent it from wiggling around and snapping a contact off the motor.