Attaching a wire to board with shield

[EQL]

Thanks for your help,
I hope this is the right place to post this.
I am trying to find a good way to attach an external button to my WEMOS D1 mini (V4) with RGB LED Shield. I do not want to increase the height of the module, I want to place the button externally.
I'm not sure how best to attach a wire long term. I tried soldering to pins once (worked until it broke off) and tried soldering to a tall header (didn't work, not a reasonable long term solution).
Any ideas? I have attached photos.
Gentle tips on soldering are appreciated but please be nice, I am just learning and have tremors so my joints are not pro-level yet
I have male pins, short headers and tall headers.

I have a program written now that mostly does what I want and has 2 buttons. I can actually trigger the buttons by just touching the pin on the board. I'm not sure why that is and if that is a good or bad thing? The wire on the long pin didn't work (maybe a bad solder joint?) 99% of the time. Occasionally I was able to touch the end of the wire (and no ground) and trigger the button. Again, I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing?

Thanks

[LarryD]

Solder stranded wires to the PCB pads.

[UKHeliBob]

All of the D1 Mini pins are brought out to the top of the LED shield. Solder directly to the solder pad on the shield

[EQL]

do you mean to the pin where it pokes out the top and make sure it also touches the board? Or do you mean the tiny little squares on the back of the shield that are arranged in crosses?

[LarryD]

Similar to this:

[UKHeliBob]

On top of the shield where the pin is soldered to the pad

[EQL]

If you mean these I guess I need to work on steadying my hand cause those are tiny

[EQL]

@UKHeliBob

On top of the shield where the pin is soldered to the pad

oh awesome! That's a lot easier than the tiny spots on the back of the shield

[LarryD]

Also, invest in a liquid FLUX PEN.

[LarryD]

@EQL

I guess I need to work on steadying my hand

Use a helper to hold the wire:

Share tips you have come across

Soft Hold Down Attachment for Component Soldering Further to Post #813 The old sharp tipped Hold Down tool, works well for most SMD components like 1206s etc. When it comes to bare wire busbars or MELF diodes, it can be quite challenging to solder them properly on your prototype PCBs. The following images describe how to fabricate a new attachment that makes your soldering jobs easy and faster. [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K]

[EQL]

I have a third hand but this looks like a good investment as well. I've got a flux pen and love it.

[LarryD]

@EQL

I have a third hand but this looks like a good investment as well

Not much of an investment, you should be able to make your own for 2 to 3 dollars.

[EQL]

cool! Where would I find parts like that bent rod?

[LarryD]

Bicycle spokes, bend them with pliers as needed.

[LarryD]

See this link also:

Share tips you have come across

Constructing a ‘High Boy’ soldering hold down clamp. The first version of the soldering ‘Hold Down Clamp’ is one of the most useful tools on my workbench. Taking this idea a bit further, the new adjustable version of the tool is just as useful. For the lack of a better name, I will refer to the new tool as a ‘High Boy’ soldering clamp. This clamp allows you to secure components that are higher than I.C.s or SMDs; the height adjustment tunes the tool to the level of what is being soldered. S…

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There are over 1000 other posts to look at on that thread, might be of interest to you too.

[pmagowan]

If your buttons are responding to noise that is generally a bad thing. You might want to look up standard approach to buttons on the forum. In general a pin is pulled high with a resistor and gets grounded through the button. The uC reads the LOW as a button press. You often need some debounce code to avoid the button turning off and on multiple times when pressed due to slight jumping of the contacts.

[EQL]

thanks. I'll look it up. I'm using a 3.3v board (WEMOS D1 mini v4). In another sketch I wrote I had no problem, but with this sketch I seem to be running into problems. I'm using the same hardware and I can't figure out the difference in the sketches. Thanks for your advice. I'll do some more reading in the forums and see if I can figure out what element is different between the two sketches.

[LarryD]

Follow the recommendation above for your switches, S3 is best.

If you pole/scan your switches ≈ 50ms this will sufficiently debounce switches.

Look for switch change in state as opposed to switch levels.

[EQL]

Thanks. I'm not a professional, but I'm fairly certain my set up is S3 with 3.3v. It's something in the sketch that's not working. They both use INPUT_PULLUP but one is all done at once checking, and the other is done across a state machine cases. On the second one it seems to get stuck on LOW and does not register that it goes back up to HIGH after I release the button and therefore does not advance to the next case.

[LarryD]

Best show us your current code.

A schematic of your cct. is nice to see.

An image of the wiring can help too.