Neck Ache: Part 2: Soldering

My shrink tubing isn't shrinking all that much when I put it next to a soldering iron. Any ideas?

I was very sad when I shattered the first new $100 LCD panel I got, but that was about it. Right now, I am in a fit of rage over my stupidity in cutting off that flipping cable end. I spent well over two hours today stripping and soldering wires, many of which were no thicker than my hair. I'm not sure which hurts worse, my back, my neck, or my fingers... Anyway lets take a trip back in time and try to figure out how I got here:

These are the devil's wires. They're ones in the black cable. They are so thin, if you showed them to a MacBook Air, it would probably have a kernel Panic on the spot. That's a terrible mac joke, but these cables have damaged my mental stability! Sorry. I found the best way to strip these super slim wires was to take my x-acto knife and lightly cut through the insolation all the way around and pull it off. I should say, even after discovering this trick, I was still less than 50/50 at not just breaking the wire. It sucked. But you wont have to worry about this, because you didn't cut the cable.

The wires in the grey cable are still thin, but soooooooo much easier to work with. Though they are too small for the 20-22 AWG hole on my wire strippers, I found that using the area just below that to lock onto the insolation worked out great. Just don't squeeze the handles together too hard or you might cut the wire.

I used the same trick on the wires that attached to the LCD's video card

Oh forgot to mention, I wen't out and grabbed one of these puppies for $10 earlier today and it saved by butt! They are super great, free up your hands, and you should get one if you don't have one.

When I was at QCM inc. (the cable making place), they nice guy there demonstrated how to properly solder connections such as these. First you get your wires situated right up next to each other as shown below. If, like in this case, they're stranded wires, inter-tangle the wires a little. Then, take you hot soldering gun and melt some solder onto the tip. Then, in a single motion, bring the tip down onto the overlap between the two wires, lay the melted solder along the strands, and pull it back up.

22 wires doesn't sound like a lot. But it is. Anyway, I'm completely burnt out on this soldering business for tonight. The top is just going to have to wait.