Soft Circuit Workshop

Techniques used in my final project

Soldering Surface Mount LEDs

I have to admit, the prospect of soldering 60 SMD LEDs was daunting and a little scary. I was surprised to find that it did in fact get easier after the first 20 or so. Like knitting or neurosurgery, soldering LEDs requires a great deal of patience and a light touch.

The two things I found most helpful were the narrow soldering iron tips and the handy wire holder for the crimping bead. The soldering iron tip needs to be very clean and you should tin the tip constantly to keep the iron from sticking to the parts and moving them around.

The first step in soldering these parts would be to place the LED into one of the clamps of the helping hands. Try and get it as level as possible.

Next, get a crimping bead onto your small piece of wire. I used 22 gage wire with the insulation stripped off.

Then I placed the wire with the bead in the other clamp and carefully arranged them so the side of the bead is touching the soldering pad of the LED.

This is where the bulk of your time is spent. Once you’ve done a few, you get the hang of setting them up and you can knock them out really quickly.

Once you have successfully soldered one bead onto once side of the LED, take the LED and bead off the wire, flip it around and put it back into the clam and grab another bead with the wire and do the process all over again for the other side.

Laser Cutting conductive fabric for fabric circuits

For my final project, I decided to have the fabric circuits laser cut by the Advanced Media Studio (AMS). This really gave my design a clean and cohesive look.

I started out by preparing my design in Adobe Illustrator. The laser cutter requires specific stroke weights and colors in order to cut your shape properly. AMS has created several guides about their services and they also have a blog that you can refer to for more information. Always make an appointment before showing up at AMS. Things can get very busy and they won’t be able to help you if you aren’t on the schedule.

Next I prepared my conductive fabric. First I cut it into three 18 x 32 sheets. The laser cutter cannot hold anything larger than 18 x 32 inches.

After I had my fabric cut I applied the interfacing to one side of the fabric. I used “Wonder Under” interfacing for this.

This is a great product and is very easy to work with. For my first piece I applied two large pieces of interfacing to the large sheet and heated it with the iron section by section. I found that large pieces of the interfacing wrinkled the fabric a lot. I thought I would try applying smaller sections of interfacing instead one large piece. This eliminated a lot of the wrinkling. I’m sure if I did even smaller sections it would have eliminated even more of the wrinkling.

Once my fabric was prepared, I took it to AMS for cutting.

Now, all I needed to do was peel off the paper from the other side of the cut out pieces and place them on the fabric I want to adhere them to and iron them.