Fantastic idea for butt connecting solid wires, but I am using stranded wire. The butt connectors I am going to use were demonstrated on YouTube. Not that anyone reading this isn't familiar with them, but I have no idea so I have to treat the reader as such.
Every person I have watched or talked to when it comes to butt connecting stranded wire always talks about soldering. I, for lack of a better way to say it, suck at soldering. I'm messy, I get too much on there, and decided early that soldering is for the professionals. I'm a wimp so I crimp. Not that crimpers are wimps, but I was trying to rhyme and that's all I could come up with.
The butt connectors I am going to use have solder in the middle, in a....circle. The wires are meshed together, then lightly twisted to remain flat, then you slide your combination shrink tube solder connector over the wires centering the solder part over the bare wires. Using standard heat sources all of us use, in my case a barbecue lighter held just below the target, shrink the ends to the covered wire to hold, then light up the center. The solder melts cleanly to the wires, and then you can finish off by heating it all nice and tight to the whole thing. As drummer said, my layout is not going to move anywhere and the wire is neatly tucked under some Velcro to the carpet, so why go the extra mile with more cosmetic shrink tape.
Looks easy, won't be, I'm sure I will mess it up some how, but in the end I will figure it out and 16 of the 17 will look good.
