How to Solder for Circuit Bending

Video Transcript

"LORIN PARKER: We're talking about circuit bending. Now, I'm going to show you how to start making these circuit bends permanent and we're going to do that by soldering some wires on. So, let's take a look at how we do this. You gotta remember that soldering, like welding, is not really about gluing things together. It's about melting things together. And so, the way to think about it is always think that solder melts the solder. I've got a hot soldering iron here. So, the solder will melt on top of my iron. It's called tinning the tip but then, if I put this on the wire, I'm going to want to draw more solder into that pool of molten solder. You can see there's a little bit of smoke coming off of there. Don't worry. That's not lead fumes. It's not heavy metals. It's actually the glue that binds the solder. It's not the best stuff to inhale but it's not terribly dangerous. In fact, a lot of household glues that we use for paper arts and crafts are more dangerous than solder fumes. However, do open a window just to save your lungs. It doesn't smell like the greatest stuff and too much of anything can be dangerous. Now, I found that this spot right here was really good when I touched it with the alligator clips and with my finger. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to permanently attach this wire. And since it's already pre-tinned, it already has solder on it, all I need to do is touch my iron to it. It melts. Now, I touch the wire, the hot wire with the iron into the solder that's on the circuit board, and you can see it all kinda globs together. And I hold it as still as I can with my slightly shaky hands and there we go. So, if you have the wire with solder on it, you have the solder point on the circuit board with solder on it, all you have to do is heat it and melt them together. So, I'm going to do that for each one of these points that I found that was interesting. So, we've got a couple more here. It's really easy if you just prep your wires first. All I'm doing is just heating the solder that's on there, melting it. When I see it flow and get really shiny and kinda spread out, I let go, I lift the soldering iron away. That takes the heat off and makes it permanent. So, always think--touch the wire first, again--and actually this is my soldered in and so you touch the wire first and then you bring it down onto your circuit board. And then when you see it glob together like this, that's the way it's ready to go here. This one's being difficult on me. There it goes. It's getting wet there. Sometimes it takes a little bit of patience. There it is. I can see it sort of moving together. And so, now, I just hold the wire, lift up the iron. You gotta hold the iron--the wire steady. It takes about a second for the solder to cool off and to form a joint. Your joints should look shiny and not dull. If you got good shiny joints like this, then you'll have good connections for further attachments. So, that's how we start prepping this to become a permanent circuit-bent instrument."