Hello everyone!
I am finishing my prototype of an interactive dress. I am using 16 crafted pressure sensors. Until now I made some trials and it worked more or less fine. But now I need to have the prototype working for my final dissertation.
This is the setup: wires are soldered one side on the circuit board and the other side is taped (with insulating tape) onto a layer of metallic tape. These connections are rather week and I am experiencing quite a lot of problems in making them stable. Here it is a drawing of a sensor:
I was wandering if it is possible to solder each end of the wire to the matching metallic tape. That way the connection would be strong enough. Or if there are any alternatives to this solution. Help is much appreciated, because this issue is getting me stuck and I am running out of time.
Thank you in advance.
Not sure this will help you or not but soldering on metal is okey if you use some soldering paste along with solder it should stuck ok! but not withstand many shocks or tinkling.
It depends on what metal the tape is made of. If it is aluminum then you can't but if it is copper you can.
However, soldering creates a weak point if the joint has to be flexed, and often it cracks, espically with stranded wire. You are better off with some sort of crimped connection. Have you considered silicon rubber inplace of insulation tape?
If it is aluminum then you can't but if it is copper you can
Grumpy_Mike did a good point: the metallic tape I used is indeed made of aluminum, which I now realize it's unsolderable Silicone seems to be a fast, easy and cheep solution. I tried this morning (on a separate test) with the common silicone (white, the one usually used to repear bathrooms): it takes ages to get solid, and might not be what Grumpy_Mike was talking about. Can you please provide a link of the kind of silicone you were suggesting? That would be awesome. Thank you, this is very much helpful.
Finally I'd like to ask a side question (if it's not appropriate in this topic just let me know, I'll start a new one).
Which is the best way to get a wire connected to a header? (please have a look to the picture below).
I tried soldering (heating the lower part of the header and putting solder on the hole), then put the wire and heat again, but it seems to me it's not the best way of doing this. I tried also with the silicone, but it seems it's not going to stick properly. I want to mount the wires to the headers in order to keep my Arduino pins clean and possibly use my Arduino for other projects.
You can use male headers and solder the wire to those header, then just connect them, soldering wires to female headers is at least stupid, because if you want it soldered, solder the wire directly on where you want to put the header/wire combination.
If you need quick non conductive attachment, try hot glue (I suggest the low temp to avoid blistered fingers). Lot quicker and more convient than silicone adhesive. As to soldering the wire into the header, try heating the exposed wire at the top where it goes into the header hole. You need a fine tip soldering iron. I've done this to solder wire into shunt jumpers to make removable connectors for pins.
You might try conductive glue or epoxy; you can buy the stuff, but it typically isn't very cheap (the commercial stuff typically contains silver) - you can also make it using "liquid tape" and graphite lubricant:
Be sure to read that instructable completely, then check his web site:
Something to note: This homemade stuff has a variable resistance to bending (and possibly compression?) - keep that in mind (and/or use it to your advantage!)...
OK, I'll wait until regular silicon got solid and will try hot glue. My concern is that in both ways the 1/4" of wire wich is striped will not get directly in contact with the aluminuim tape, which would cause a "cold joint"... I will report on the experiments. Thank you. Meanwhile I figured out how to get the wires and headers joint togheter.
Silicone seems to be a fast, easy and cheep solution. I tried this morning (on a separate test) with the common silicone (white, the one usually used to repear bathrooms): it takes ages to get solid, and might not be what Grumpy_Mike was talking about. Can you please provide a link of the kind of silicone you were suggesting? That would be awesome. Thank you, this is very much helpful.