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Day 1 Intro To Soldering and Building A Powersupply1

This document provides instructions for making a basic 5V power supply and practicing soldering skills. It begins with safety warnings for soldering and then instructs the reader to practice soldering various electronic components to a soldering board. Next, it teaches how to properly strip and splice wires together, applying heat shrink tubing for insulation. The final section provides step-by-step instructions for assembling the 5V power supply by connecting wires from an AC adapter to a breadboard for testing.

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Mariyam Nabeel Siddiqui
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80 views7 pages

Day 1 Intro To Soldering and Building A Powersupply1

This document provides instructions for making a basic 5V power supply and practicing soldering skills. It begins with safety warnings for soldering and then instructs the reader to practice soldering various electronic components to a soldering board. Next, it teaches how to properly strip and splice wires together, applying heat shrink tubing for insulation. The final section provides step-by-step instructions for assembling the 5V power supply by connecting wires from an AC adapter to a breadboard for testing.

Uploaded by

Mariyam Nabeel Siddiqui
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Experiment 1: Introduction to Soldering and making your 5V power supply.

WARNING: Your soldering iron will get hot! Please take basic precautions to
avoid burns.
1. Always assume a soldiering iron is hot. Even if it isnt plugged in it can retain sufficient
heat to burn.
2. Use a proper stand to hold your soldering iron. Dont leave it on the bench.
3. Be careful never to rest the tip of the iron on the power cord that supplies electricity to the
iron. It can melt the plastic in seconds and cause a dramatic short circuit.
4. If you drop the soldering iron, dont be a hero and try to catch it. Most likely you will grab
the hot part which hurts and you will just drop it again. Just pick it up quickly when it hits
the floor.
5. Always bear in mind that others around you are more at risk of hurting themselves on a
soldering iron that you are, because they wont know that its hot.
LEARN BY DOING!
You will start by practicing making solder connections on your
solder board. Set your iron to 330oF and allow it a minute or so
to reach operating temperature. A large selection of SURPLUS
components is available for you to solder into your board. Take
some of these components and solder at least fifteen of them
to your board using the technique illustrated on the following
page. When you are done, show the result to your instructor.
The following graphics show the difference between correctly
installed components and poorly installed components.

Some of your components include:


Resistors

Electrolytic
Capacitors

Ceramic
Capacitors

Diodes

Monolithic
Capacitors

LED

Next you will need to practice wire splices. First you will need to learn to strip wire. Automatic
wire strippers are available inexpensively and work well with small wire. Using them on wire
larger then what is pictured will break these tools!
First insert the wire into the mouth of the automatic wire
stripper with about 3/8 of insulation inside the jaws.

Squeeze the handle to remove the insulation.

To remove insulation from the end of a thin piece of wire, you can
use your wire cutters or strippers. Squeeze the cutters gently on the
wire and rock the cutters back and forth to cut through the
insulation.

Pull the insulation off the wire while squeezing gently.

Those who misplace tools and feel too


impatient to search for them, may feel
tempted to strip wire with their teeth. This
may not be such a good idea.

You will need to strip a large quantity of solid core wire


for use with your projects. Start now by stripping 20 or
so pieces of solid core wire cut to lengths of 2 to 3
inches.

Follow the illustrations below to solder two of your wires together.


First align the two wires parallel to each other. This will take some
practice. If you dont align them carefully, you wont be able to
slide an insulating sleeve over the connection.

Heat up the wire first with the tip of the iron.

The solder should contact


the iron, not the tip of the
from the tip of the iron to
liquefies, and you will see it
doesnt happen, be patient
You may need to turn your

Be sure to feed the solder as shown.


the hot metal immediately next to
iron. Do NOT try to carry solder
the joint. Wait until the solder
running eagerly into the joint. If this
and apply the heat for a longer time.
iron up to 350oF.

The finished joint has enough solder for strength, but not so much solder
that it will prevent the insulating sleeve from sliding over it.

After you have succeeded in making a good inline solder connection between two wires, its time
for the easy part. You want to add an insulating layer to protect your joint from short circuits.
This can be done with electrical tape, but using heat shrink tubing produces superior results.
Follow the illustrations below to successfully apply heat shrink tubing to your joint.
Choose a size of heat shrink tubing that is just larger than your
joint with a bit of room to spare. Slide the tubing along until the
joint is centered under it.

Switch on the heat gun (keeping your fingers away from the
superheat air). Turn the wire so that you heat both sides. The
tubing should shrink tight around the joint with 30 seconds.

If you overheat the joint, it may


splits, at which point you must
As soon as the tubing is tight around
gun.

shrink so much that it


remove it and start over.
the wire, switch off the heat

Now you will assemble your 5V breadboard power supply.


1.

Make sure your AC adapter is not plugged into the wall.

2. Chop off the little plug at the end of its wire.

3. Use a box cutter or utility knife or scissors to hake a half


inch cut between the two conductors, and then pull the
conductors apart a couple of inches.
4. Strip the two conductors using your wire strippers making
one shorter than the other to reduce the risk of them
touching. Twist the copper strands between your finger
and thumb so that there are no loose strands sticking out.
5. Call one of the instructors over for instruction on
determining the polarity of your wires. Color the positive
lead red using an marker and the negative lead black.

6.

Cut two pieces of solid conductor 22-gauge wire one of them


red and the other black or blue. Each should be about 2
inches long. Strip a quarter inch of insulation from both ends
of the wire.

7. Solder the wires so that the red wire is soldered to the lead
you previously colored red. Solder the black wire to the lead
you previously colored black. Add heat-shrink tubing as you
did previously.
In the next project we will test your power supplies.

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