Aug 30-Soldering

Intro:

In class, we did an introduction on how to solder. Soldering is a term used to describe the process most commonly used to connect two metal objects together. It is done by heating up the metal and applying the solder (a compound that is usually made of tin or lead). The combination of the hot metal and the solder causes a chemical reaction that makes all three compounds bind together to form a bond that, once cool, is strong and allows electricity to flow through it.

Procedure:

In this lab, our instructions were to solder a battery snap to a power plug and then solder wires from a power jack to a header pin. We were then supposed to test our device using a pre-prepared breadboard that had an LED light. The desired result was that when the battery snap was placed on top of the battery and the header pin was placed in the breadboard, the LED would light up.

All of our materials before we started

We started out by preparing the wires that would run from our power jack to the header pin. First we had to cut the wires and strip the covering off of both ends so that the solder would stick to the metal. Next, we pre-applied the solder to the wires to hopefully make it easier to get the wire to stick to the header pin. Unfortunately, in our case, that seemed to make it more difficult to get the wire to meld, so we ended up applying more solder as we were trying to connect them. After adding more solder, the solder melted and the metals fused properly.

The other issue we ran into was not being careful when choosing how to connect the wire to the power jack. We soldered our wire on perpendicular to the jack, and then realized that it would not fit into the sleeve. Because of that error, we had to reheat the metal, take off the wire, and re-solder the entire piece.

After finishing the piece that would connect the breadboard to the jack, we began working on the piece that connects the battery to the plug. This time, we avoided the errors we made with the jack and managed to get everything soldered quickly and properly.

Our finished battery clip and header pin

Then the only thing left was to test our pieces using the breadboard. We placed the header pin in the breadboard, clipped the battery snap on the battery, and achieved success.

Success!

Conclusion:

Overall, I really enjoyed learning how to solder. It was really interesting to me to see how something that was liquid a few moments ago could cool off and form a strong bond. It was also neat to be able to make something so easily that could provide power for a breadboard. I learned a lot in this lab and I am excited to see what we get to make next!