[rotorwrench]

[QUOTE=Jim in Wisconsin;1023453]In my working career, I maintained a fleet of electric lift trucks so I dealt with d.c. connections a lot. A good crimp is a better connection than a solder joint if the lug is desiged for that. If a wire is a loose fit in a lug and the gap is filled with solder, that would not be considered a good connection, and letting the solder wick up into the wire is also not good.

I work with crimp type almost exclusively in aviation so I know where you're coming from. A wire really has to be tinned prior to soldering or it can get contaminated. Soldered connections can get brittle & break easier when they are under vibration or stress loading so they aren't used much in aviation but there are always exceptions.

I have a pair of crimpers that my Pop purchased in a terminal set back in the early 60s when crimp types were still crimped bare and then heat shrink wrapped to finish. Those crimpers have a little concave shaped into one jaw and pointed end on the other jaw. They leave a pretty deep depression in the terminal if you crimp them too hard. They will work better if a person partially crimps one side then flips the tool over and crimps again from the other side. The OEM tool may have just had a concave shape with a small point on each jaw but it is not so easy to crimp a cylindrical shaped terminal and keep the tool centered properly unless it was shaped that way. Crimping the neck of the bullet always deforms them too so a person has to have a happy medium there to get successful results. Soldering the bullet tip would leave the terminal in much better shape as long as minmal solder was used so as just to get an acceptable joint with no cold solder.