Soldering is the permanent electrical joining of components and wires onto a printed circuit board or a piece of perfboard, by melting an alloy that provides both the mechanical bond and the electrical contact.
In the project
This is the basic gesture of building electronics: populating a PCB, wiring up a power supply, making a connection that must not move. It stands opposite plug-in connectors (JST, headers), which are preferred for anything that has to remain demountable (see eco-design). On the project safety side, soldering is done at a fume-extracted bench, with the right PPE and after training, following the workshop rules under safety and quality.
The finer techniques, covering SMD soldering, reflow, desoldering and joint inspection, belong to the electronics lab sessions and to the dedicated workshop. The wiki places soldering within the project without detailing the gesture itself.
See also
- PCB — the substrate the components are soldered to
- PPE and Safety and quality — protection and workshop rules
- Eco-design — soldering against demountable connectors
- Electronics workshop and lab sessions (colleagues) — the soldering gesture itself