Explore

Soldering - Lab 4

Lap Joints

What a Lap joint is and its purpose

Lap joints are made to provide a strong connection between two separate wires. They are created by overlapping two separate wires and connecting them with solder. A good solder will be clean, shiny, and with no cracks. A good solder should also be fully coated with solder, smooth, and you should be able to pull on the wires without it breaking. If a solder didnt have these, you run the risk of damage to components, short circuits, or even a fire in some cases.

How to create a Lap joint

Creating a good lap joint is hard to do right, but to begin, you:

Cut the wires to the length that you need them to be for soldering (about 1/4-1/2 an inch)

lightly press the soldering iron to heat the wire to allow the solder to adhere to the wire better

lightly coat each of the exposed wires in solder to allow the joint to bond to itself more easily

Place the soldering iron on the workbench, melt some solder onto the iron, then quickly put the two wires into the solder and iron and adjust the wires until you have a desirable joint.

⁠

This is the finished Solder and what it should somewhat look like, just still has its own problems

This is the finished Solder and what it should somewhat look like, just still has its own problems

⁠

This is what tinning looks like

This is what tinning looks like

⁠

Printed Circuit Board (PCB) Soldering

What is the purpose of PCB soldering

Like the lap joint, soldering a PCB is used to create a strong electrical connection that can be continuously relied on. When soldering onto a PCB, you are trying to solder a component like a resistor or capacitor onto the PCB. To get a good solder, it needs to look shiny, smooth, have no cracks, and look like a volcano.

How to solder onto a PCB

Soldering onto a PCB is significantly easier than making a lap joint, to start:

Insert the component into the PCB ports that you need.

On one of the ports, press the iron to heat it.

Flipping the board around, heat up the other port, then melt some solder into the port to provide a quick but secure anchor point for the part (in this case, a resistor) to latch onto the board.

Flipping the board again on the other port, melt solder into it. Once done melting, it should resemble a volcano or a cone shape.

Repeat this on the remaining holes.

⁠

This was my soldering and should look somewhat like this

This was my soldering and should look somewhat like this

⁠

This is the back of that older

This is the back of that older

⁠

How I did while soldering

Lap joints

This was not my first time soldering. I have some experience with soldering lap joints, but not with any other types. My first lap joint solder was not as good as it could have been, it was significantly longer than it needed to be, making it need a lot of extra solder, and there were a few tiny gaps between the created joint. There was also some corrosion because I let the solder stay on the iron too long.

When I went to redo the lap joint solder, it turned out a lot better, but it still had some problems. First, it was the right length, and it didnt have as many gaps, but it still had some corrosion on it, meaning I still let the solder on the iron too long.

PCB Soldering

PCB soldering for me was significantly easier than the lap joints, when I went to solder they turned out pretty good. There werent any real noticeable faults with the solder. It had a good volcano shape, and didnt have any burn marks or cracks.

Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.

Try clicking the ··· in the right corner or using a keyboard shortcut (

CtrlP

) instead.