I am new to soldering. Last week, I finally soldered female headers onto my Arduino Pro Mini and then I soldered jumper wires onto the male headers of my other components so that I can connect them to my Arduino. I have a LiPro battery, a bluetooth module, and an accelerometer connected to it, with a USB charger connected to the LiPro battery. I got my code uploaded and everything is working fine.
The footprint of my components by themselves is fine. However, with the soldered jumper wires connected to everything and protruding out of the back, my project is simply too big for my intended use. Another problem is that with the long jumper wires from my accelerometer, the accelerometer might sway simply from that weak connection and give me incorrect data. I have attached some pictures.
Like I said, I'm very new to soldering so I was hoping for some advice on how to connect everything and drastically reduce the size of everything.
My idea was to desolder everything, including the headers from all my components. Then, for each component, I'd directly wire a short strand of soldering wire from the hole on the Arduino Mini to the corresponding hole on the other component. I'd very rapidly touch the soldering iron to the solder wire at each hole and my hope is that it would melt just enough so that the part that is already in the hole would melt and expand to fill the hole, and then quickly solidify and anchor everything in place.
Is this a feasible strategy? Can soldering wire be used like this to make connections, only by itself and without the use of any other headers or jumper wires?
If there is an easier or more elegant strategy that will make my project more compact and aesthetic, please let me know.
No - solder is for a mechanical connection only and isn't meant to carry current or signals; besides, I doubt your plan would work well.
Instead, get yourself some insulated solid core or stranded core wire in an appropriate gauge (thickness) - for your project, 18 or 22 gauge would probably be ok. You can use a single color, or use multiple colors if you need color coding. A good source for such "hook up wire" are from old lengths of solid-core ethernet cabling; you can sometimes find it in the trash near an office that is being renovated (hundreds of yards/meters).
Then cut it to length for each connection, strip and tin the ends of each wire and component, then solder them together.
For some extreme examples of what is possible (with time, skill, and patience), google image search on "dead bug arduino"...
Please don't use solder as jumper wire. Sacrifice one or more of your insulated wires to provide interconnect wire. If one of your boards has no components or copper traces on the back side, you can put the two boards together using double sided foam tape or hot glue. Then add your jumper wires between the boards, using real insulated wire.
cr0sh:
A good source for such "hook up wire" are from old lengths of solid-core Ethernet cabling; you can sometimes find it in the trash near an office that is being renovated (hundreds of yards/meters).
It has been mentioned here before, that some "Cat 5"/ "Cat 6" cabling is actually aluminium and essentially, useless for any purpose other than termination by IDC connectors.
If however it is copper, it is excellent for fixed (non-moving) connections between modules - though not strong enough on its own as a mounting arrangement.
To sum things up (and re-iterate many of the things said)
1.) Solid wire is OK to use if your components will not be moving/moved much.. if so, then you copper STRANDED wire.
2.) You do NOT need to use headers... (in-fact they are really for making the component bread-board friendly more or less.. and since you are doing that, soldering directly to the board is ok, int this case you used female headers to make connections quicker,..but these are very secure, and direct soldering will make things more stable)
3.) Always use insulated wire.. (some sort of protective covering on the wire of choice that protects from shorts/touching other parts)
3a.) Looking at your pics.. (yes I know you are new) :).. you want to keep the exposed/open ends as SHORT as possible.... this is (again) to avoid bending/breaking/making contact with other wires/components.
4.) What pins does your Accelerometer need to use? Can you add male headers to it and then plug it into the female headers on the nano? (sort like a 'shield' I guess)
What is your work envelope? (size you have to have the project fit with-in?)
Height/width?
As suggested a piece of perf-board may be your holy grail here..
you can align the components they way you want.. then secure them and connect using the traces/vias on the perf-board
*tinning: tinning both the pad and the wire before final connection is good practice and makes for easier soldering int he end..
Thanks for the responses! I have attached another picture to this post that shows all the connections that have to be made.
I tried desoldering all of my headers so that I could attempt to redo those connections using smaller bits of insulated wire ... however, I had no luck with desoldering anything. I tried using some cheap desoldering braid and even a vacuum bulb that I got from Radioshack, but neither of them worked. The components are relatively cheap so I will probably start from scratch.
xl97, as you can see in the picture attached to this post, the Accelerometer needs three of its pins to connect to Analog Inputs, and the other two need to connect to Vcc and GND. There is nowhere on the Arduino Mini where I'd be able to simply plug the accelerometer in and make those connections.
In terms of size, for length and height I would ideally want everything to be able to stack flat onto the battery. I want the accelerometer glued in position onto one of the corners to that I know which axes it is referring to, and it stays constant. The only consideration is the width, and I guess that should be able to be minimized if I use smaller wires.
To make a 'VCC' connection, just drive a pin high. Low for ground. Next to the analog pins, you have a VCC pin. Use that and A3 as ground. Then you can use A0,A1,A2 to read the sensor.
