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Lab 4 - Soldering

Lap Joint

What I did:

Prepare practice wires

Cut the wires in half

Separated the individual strands

Strip the wires carefully using the correct tool setting

The wires are stripped about ¼ inch from the end

Set up the soldering station

Set the soldering station dial to 4

Dampen the sponge with reverse osmosis (RO) water

We use RO water due to the minerals in tap water

If we were to use Indiana tap water, the minerals and sediment would not allow the soldering iron to work effectively

Clean and prepare the soldering iron tip

The metal sponge used for cleaning requires a bit more force than I expected to get the old solder off the iron

Tin the wires

Tinning is putting a small amount of solder on the exposed wire before soldering them together

My first tinning, I burned the solder and the wire installation

My second tin was much better, the wires were completely covered with no burns

Solder the wires

A proper lap joint should look fully covered, with no burning, and shiny

On my first attempt, I didn’t use enough solder, and there were gaps between the two wires

My next attempt was much better. The wires were fully covered, the solder was shiny, and there were no bulges.

Images:

First attempt - You can clearly see the burning and bulging that we do not want.

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Here you can see more burning, and that the wires are not completely covered. Again, not what you want.

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Second attempt - I didn’t take pictures of the tinning beforehand, but it was much better without burning or bulging. Also, the wires are completely covered, and the solder is shiny.

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Through Hole PCB

What I did:

Insert both leads of the resistor into the PCB through the top so the excess wire pokes out the bottom

Bend the legs of the resistor slightly to hold it in place.

Apply the head of the soldering iron to the resistor leg and the soldering pad for about 1 second.

You then feed a small amount of solder into/onto the heated solder pad/component leg.

Hold the soldering iron in place until the solder flows.

a. The goal is to have an end result of the solder in a volcano shape, that is shiny, with no bulging, and the plate is completely covered

You need to pay special attention to when using solder wick

a. How much solder you are melting at a time

b. How quickly it will burn, and how hot your iron is

Images:

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You can see they are not perfect, and the more I worked, the more I burned the PCB. When I had too much solder, I used the iron to remelt and remove some of the excess. I found it slightly easier to work from the bottom of the PCB than the top because the resistor stayed in place better. This kind of soldering was more difficult for me than the tinning and reconnecting wires, since I found it more difficult to see and gauge how much solder I needed to use.

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