thing for bending wire on solder eyelet - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2025, 01:47:12 am
content: So you have a switch in a panel with a basically too short cable in the chassis that you need to solder to the switch.You have those 'needle nose strippers' that can strip the wire inside of the chassis OK, and you can bend a light curve in it so it goes through a switch eyelet. But then you are supposed to form the wire over the switch eyelet in a sharp bend, and its mad annoying. For switches that have 3 or more layers of solder eyelets, its very hard to bend the middle one, so you need to desolder the top one first, so you can clumsily try to do it with tweezers (and fray the twisted wire too, then have to neaten it into a tight broom)is there some sort of curved tool that can like... close over a eyelet with a wire sticking into it to pull it back so you get a neat hook for soldering and trimming?I thought something might exist from the switchboard days.I imagined like L shaped tweezers that also have a curve in them, and like a ground... concave apature that can close over the eyelet and pull the wire into a tighter J but also prevent the broom from coming apart?If your doing a assembly, you premake the switches, but for a repair you have zip ties , sleeves, laces, and undoing all that to get at 1 switch is kinda a problem. There should be a tool for this.Solder eyelet J-hook right angle wire forming tool?pre-making the j-hook so its tight AND getting it through the hole without fraying it is mad annoying. Pre-tinning a section is risky for fine stranded thin wire, because its up to the gods if it decides to wick too much. Unless you half-ass it and bend tinned wire, it just sucks. Took me hours to do like 4 switches.Like this:you want the insulation not near the eyelet BTW, the drawing is not correct. but the shape is.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2025, 11:16:47 am
content: i think you can mod a duck bill tweezer to do this, I have them in my cheap tweezer kit, never used it for nothing and forgot it existed. not sure what the hell it is for, i think its part of a 'shape assortment' for marketing reasons , I only ever thought a razor is good for moving stickers around

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2025, 01:07:14 am
content: Wouldn't they mostly just tin and solder without bending it over? If there are that many layers.https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2251832758673855.htmlI know what you are saying though.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2025, 06:32:46 am
content: its hard to trim or put heat shrink over them if you don't loop it

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2025, 09:48:44 pm
content: You don't need to trim since you'd tin a specific length.The heatshrink wouldn't be possible but thats a hell of a lot of work, I wouldn't bother.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2025, 10:21:56 pm
content: the nicest equipment like brookdeal (or some other thing related to keithley) does it IIRC.I did it on my HP current source switch mod (500uA range) but it was only a handful of wires.. might be a little frustrating if you had to do all 28 lolAnd I definitely seen it in some equipment where I found heat shrink over the IEC connector solder points too. If you run mains to the front panel switch, I think its a good idea.

author: Langdon
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 13, 2025, 06:24:16 pm
content: Why not just wire the switch to leads separately, then attach the leads using some sort of connector?Solderless (e.g. crimp) connectors, solder + heat-shrink tubing, or those all-in-one waterproof connectors will work.

author: Langdon
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 13, 2025, 06:40:01 pm
content: Quote from: thm_w on April 10, 2025, 01:07:14 amWhy would you use something with a fixed number of positions when you could have an infinite number of chioces with a true analog potentiometer?

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2025, 09:36:14 pm
content: Quote from: Langdon on April 13, 2025, 06:40:01 pmLower noise, more precision and repeatability.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2025, 10:36:10 pm
content: and it could be for a chassis mount circle connector or probobly lots of other components I am not thinking of. Last time I just happened to be working on a switch. (usually they have a equally difficult to service 'solder tube' though, instead of eyelets, but I bet its around.And it also will get extra ugly and hard to access if you use coaxial cables for some reason. Suddenly there is mad shit in the way that you don't want to risk disturbing