Robots’ extreme soldering

I love that he makes the effort to make the wiring so tidy. I’ve seen other projects with similar soldering, but there the wires are usually left looking like small shrubbery.

I don’t have any pictures of it, but I guess my most challenging soldering work was connecting 30AWG wire to all four corners of a 0603 bicolor LED to test it on a breadboard.

One source is http://www.rrunner.co.uk. I believe this is what Elm-chan uses. They also sell wiring pens (though you can make your own with a mechanical pencil, Google “build a wiring pen”). And some neat wire distribution strips, which although they aren’t necessary, help you route wires around a board if you lack Elm-chan’s patience/skill. http://www.verodirect.com also makes similar products, including the wire.

You may find UEW wire other places too. I haven’t actually tried it yet, though I intend to soon. For through-hole components and others that aren’t very heat sensitive, I’ve been using Radio Shack’s wire-wrap wire, and a higher soldering temperature to melt/burn through the plastic insulation. Wiggling the wire and iron a bit when making the connection helps quickly displace the insulation. It’s a bit smelly and ugly, but it does work, and is much faster than stripping wire. When you make the final connection and need to cut the wire, it can be done with a X-acto knife; but I generally find it easier to just pull it taut while working it back and forth a few times, it’ll soon break cleanly off just past the solder joint. And of course, you can make a wiring pen for this wire with a mechanical pencil as well.