I'm new to soldering, but have a few fans running on wires I've soldered, and nothing has blown up yet... As I discovered recently, my graphics card fan has not been plugged in, and I do not have an adapter for it. So of course I just grabbed a molex Y connector and modded it to fit the fan. The following picture is the best one I could take with my digital camera. (I'm not a big fan of autofocus anymore). (The shiny part between the two is a reflection from a scratch in the metal beneath, not solder) You can't tell too much by this picture, but the wires, nor the solder, come anywhere near touching. But since bare wire is showing, should I scrap this and start over after purchasing some heat-shrink tubing? Use it as-is? Or electrical-tape it and call it a day? EDIT: And yes, I have tested it, and it works fine.
Doesn't look too bad. If you're that nervous about it put some hot glue over it. I'm guessing the other ends of the wires are attached to semething - so heat shrink tubing is out of the question. There was that liquid heat shrink stuff - though I can't remember its name... But it should be just fine.
The red looks ok the black looks like it need to be re-done though. Soldering wires to pins can be a bit tough, but not too hard. Give your solder joints a good yank, if they come apart, you didn't have a good physical connection, so you couldn't have a good electrical connection. If the wires come off the pins (which I suspect they will do) try to tin the pins. Use something to hold the header, or lay it down on something where it won't slide a lot. Put the tip of the iron on the pin, wait a sec, poke a bit of solder at the point where the soldering iron and the pin meet. If you are using a good rosin core solder, it should flow around the pin covering it. Then just get your tinned wire, hold it against the pin, and touch the iron to the back of the wire, let the heat go through the wire melting the solder on the wire and the solder on the pin, hold the wire still and remove the iron from the joint. Keep holding it, it's probably feels like you're buring your finger with the wire, but it isn't that hot. Wait for the joint to solidify. Now you can let go. Then hot glue that sucker to keep repetative stress from breaking the joint or the wire. Tape/heatshrink as needed. Don't worry, you will get the hang of it eventually.
As said, make sure you heat the object to be soldered, not the solder itself. You want to heat the object and the solder should flow over it. If you don't, you may get a cold solder joint, which can break apart or come off easily over time. Or in ten minutes, depending on how bad it is.
