Soldering & Crimping Wires for DIY Arduino Projects

in this video we'll learn how to solder and make wires so that we can connect this knob to the arduino let's get started the main objective of this video is to solder this header pin and also make connectable wires let's warm up by making the wires first in order to connect something together in electronic projects we need wires the blood vessel of diy projects if you look here we cannot connect the arduino and the knob that simply what we need to do is crimp the wires what we see here is the finished product that we'll soon be making this is the socket that can be connected to the plug header pin which is soldered on to the knob and the plug pin of the wire can be connected to the arduino we could solder the wires directly to the knob and connect the strands of the wire to the arduino the issue here is that the strands of the wire is too flimsy and can come off too easily and if you solder a wire to the sensor that's a bit too much of a commitment what if the wire ended up being too short for the project then we have to unsolder which is time consuming what if we want to reuse the sensor for a new project and we need a different length for the wire we have to unsolder again by making this type of wire will make our lives much easier trust me so let's make these wires quick disclaimer we're dealing with sharp objects as well as high temperature objects later so please be careful and i highly recommend that you read the safety instructions of the products that you buy i'm not trying to scare you or anything simply put if you're careful and use common sense you're going to be just fine okay here's what we need and i'll put the links below i'm assuming that most of you shop using amazon you can also get these at your local hardware store and sites like sparkfun and adafruit some stuff like the crimps can be difficult to find so you might just have to use amazon 22 awg wire awg is the thickness of the wire for small diy projects we use 22 awg please purchase stranded wires because they are more flexible and please purchase three different colors so that you can distinguish between power ground and data which we'll learn about in the next video wire stripper this is what i have something like this one should be fine since it has thousands of reviews and a good average make sure it has this plier on it female and male crimps aka socket and plug crimps and heat shrink and also a lighter if you don't have any step 1 cut the red wire at a reasonable length using this part of the wire stripper it doesn't need to be that long since we're just practicing here but don't make it too short i did about this length but i should have made it longer step 2 strip the wire to expose the strands on the wire stripper it displays a number for the awg so use the one that says the number 22 but how much are we stripping get the plug crimp and what needs to happen is as you see here this part needs to hug the strands and this part needs to hug the rubber of the wire so you can kind of eyeball and strip the wire it's hard to explain words but what you need to do is close this 22 awg hole with the wire between it and hold on to it tight but not too much and you just pull it away it should make more sense if you try for yourself if you strip too much don't worry you can simply cut the extra strands and if it's not stripped enough then you can simply strip more step three as you saw earlier we need to use this plier and attach the plug crimp like this again this part hugs the exposed strands of the wire so that electricity will flow through between the crimp and the wire and this part needs to hug the rubber of the wire so that the crimp will hold on tightly and make sure it's nice and tight and doesn't let go when you pull it awesome do the same with the other side of the wire but use the socket crimp this time great step 4 the final step is to use the heat shrink so what are we covering here for the plug crimp cover up the part that will be exposed when it is inserted so anything below here should be covered you may need to cut down the heat shrink by half depending on what you bought and get your lighter and put the fire below the heat shrink and you should see the heat shrink well shrink the fire shouldn't touch the wire or the heat shrink try to roll the heat shrink around like this and for the socket crimp cover up everything except for the hole so it should look like this and we did it why are we taking this extra step i'll talk more about it in the next video but it's not good to have the power and ground touching this causes short circuiting if you have jumped the car before and your dad may have warned you to make sure that the red wire and the black wire shouldn't touch same applies to small scaled diy projects we're not powering anything in this video so you don't have to worry but we'll talk more about short circuiting in the next video and we'll see why we took this extra step try to do the same two more times with the different colored wires one of them should be black and the other one could be anything aside from red or black i tend to go with green or white okay let's learn how to solder first off what even is soldering solder is a metal alloy that could be melted to bond electronic components together for example we can use solder to bond these wires together like so and because solder is a metal alloy it is conductive so it allows electricity to pass through this plug header pin is commonly soldered on to sensors or microcontrollers so that they can be attached to a breadboard in this video we'll solder on this plug header pin so that we can connect wires to it in my opinion three main things that you should be careful are the high temperature lead and the fume high temperature is self-explanatory just be careful there are solders that are made out of lead but you can easily get left free ones like this which i use and recommend and as for the fume you can get a fan or smoke absorber like this and make sure your room is well ventilated and you can angle and move your head around so that the fume is not getting on your face or into your mouth and nose if you're not careful the process of soldering can be dangerous please read the safety instructions like this one from the university of cambridge and harvard i'll put the links below most of the precautions deal with lead so if you buy left-free solders you'll be much better i still recommend that you read these before you solder and follow instructions such as washing your hands before eating and etc again read all the instructions and cautions on the products that you buy i'm not trying to make you feel paranoid i'm simply just providing resources for precautions okay here's what we need i'll share ones that i use but anything that has good reviews should serve you well and it depends on your budget as well it might add up to a decent amount of money but what you're buying here will be used all throughout your diy electronics journey so it's worth the money solder this is the one that i use right now it does not contain lead which is good if you do choose to buy a different one i still highly recommend that you get a left free solder soldering iron this is the one that i use and it has served me really well it's temperature adjustable and it comes with the sponge so you don't need to buy the bronze tip cleaner but if you choose to buy the pen style soldering iron then i highly recommend that you buy the brass tip cleaner i'll explain and demonstrate what that is soon to be honest after i shot the footage i recommend that you use the bronze tip cleaner because it's so much better than the sponge in my opinion helping hand this will hold components in place so that it's a lot easier to solder fume absorber it's probably not necessary if you have a well ventilated room but even then it might be worth purchasing if you have a fan that can blow the fume away from your face that could work too i would have shot the footage with the absorber running but it was vibrating the table and the camera so i had to turn it off safety goggles tiny bits of solder can jump at you sometimes and it's definitely not good if it hits your eyes so protect them desolder i don't have one to show in the video but this thing is helpful when you desolder it sucks away a melting solder definitely not 100 necessary but if you find yourself stressed out constantly about desoldering then this could be a huge time saver male or plug header pin knob sensor aka potentiometer wires we can use the same wire from the first part of this video 22 awg wires three different colors multimeter it's not quite necessary for this video but it'll be helpful to buy this while at it and i'll demonstrate this in the next video it's definitely necessary in the next video and beyond same goes for arduino you can buy one while at it because we're going to use it for the next video i recommend arduino uno let us warm up by soldering two wires together this is definitely going to be a watch and learn type situation and you just gotta practice and get the hang of it first few times may be frustrating but you'll quickly get the hang of it if you keep trying i believe in you before we begin put some water on the sponge if you chose not to buy the bronze tip cleaner step one cut two wires and strip one side of each wire you only need to strip away a little bit step two turn on the soldering iron and wait for it to heat up make sure you do not touch the heating metal part it's gonna burn you and it hurts speaking from experience step three put the wires on the helping hand i like to get a small piece of paper or paper towel and put it between the helping hand and the wire so that the wire is cushioned a bit from the helping hand maybe it doesn't really matter but it's something i like to do be careful not to burn it obviously step 4 get the soldering iron on your right hand and the solder on your left hand or vice versa put the solder onto the tip and check to see if it's hot enough to melt the solder if it's not then please wait a bit longer do you see the excess solder that is on the tip this is where the sponge or the bronze tip cleaner comes in you can slide it around and the excess solder will be removed now coat the soldering tip like this and put it through the cleaner this process of coating is called tinning and you should do this before you solder the components such as the wires or sensors and tinning should be done to the components themselves too which we will do right now as you'll see i put the soldering tip into the bronze tip cleaner right before i solder something each time and for clarification the cleaner is only for the soldering iron okay let's tin the wire touch the wire strand with the tip and heat it up a little bit now put the solder on the wire strand and also let the solder touch the iron tip a little bit as well when it melts nicely onto the wire strand let go so that the solder will cool off and harden it should look like this make sure you do not see the wire strands especially on the bottom side do the same with the other wire as well we successfully tint the wires step 5 heat up one of the soldered wire and place the other one onto it while it's hot similar to what we just did in step 4. you may need more solder so you can try it like this way and now you can put a heat shrink at the exposed metal part after you make sure that it's soldered on solidly [Music] and we did it awesome work okay do what we just did but now with the knob sensor and the plug header pin it's going to be quite similar to what we just did first watch what i'm doing and then try for yourself first cut three separate header pins you can use the wire stripper i'm going to heat this part of the knob and apply solder and then i'm going to tin this header pin as well and now we can solder them together make sure it's soldered on all the way sometimes it doesn't solder all the way around and you may see the header pin exposed the main thing to consider about the header pin is that the black plastic parts can melt a bit and slide around so try not to heat the header pin for too long okay solder the other two parts and before we finish tin the soldering tip this will extend the life of the tip by avoiding oxidation and corrosion then turn off the power and clean up your workstation also please wash your hands now get the wires from the first part and connect them to the knob alright we did it great work and don't worry if you made any mistakes never feel discouraged because it is a challenging skill to get used to at first if you time traveled and saw me solder for the first time ever i guarantee that you will already feel like a soldering champion okay that's it for this video again practice makes perfect and if you have any questions please feel free to comment below or dm me in the next video we'll connect the knob to the arduino and control sounds by twisting the knob yes we're getting into the super exciting part take care and stay safe bye you

Channel: Sound Simulator

Views: 29,638

Keywords: Arduino, Solder, Soldering, Crimping, Wires, DIY, Crimp

Id: 6ipeC9ebl1M

Length: 16min 37sec (997 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 19 2021