Lab 1 - Soldering

Introduction

     Our first lab covered the steps required to permanently solder two objects together. I had done some soldering in the past, mainly just soldering wires, so this lab was a good refresher for me. I have a feeling soldering is going to be a very useful skill when taking this class. Cal and I breezed through this lab, and our circuit successfully passed the voltmeter test.

Steps:

     The first step Cal and I took was to strip all the wires we used and pre-solder them. This made future soldering much easier because the smaller copper wires would not separate, thus giving us a better connection. Next, we soldered a red wire into the center of the 2.1 mm DC power plug, and the black wire to the outside of the power plug. We then applied heat-shrink to the soldered joints to keep the wires from touching or shorting out. We then reassembled the plastic cover on our power jack. We then took the other sides of the wire and soldered them to the battery snap which is used for a 9V battery as a power source. We then broke off two header pins and inserted them in the "helping hands" to secure them. We soldered both a red and a black wire to both the gray terminals on our header pin. We also applied heat-shrink to these connections to keep them from grounding or shorting out. Next, Cal and I soldered the red wire to the inside of the 2.1mm DC power jack and the black wire to the outside of the power jack. After the power jack was reassembled, we tested our soldering skills by using a voltmeter to see if power was making it through a complete circuit. Our soldering was successful as there was voltage passing through the wires and out the connections. Cal and I further tested it as shown below, which lit up the led from the breadboard.