Soldering pads on LED strips together - best soldering tip size and style?

[victorhooi]

Hi,

I need to solder several addressable LED strips together, and I'm having trouble getting a consistent and perfect join.

The pads are roughly 1mm wide.



I'm using a chisel tip at the moment, which is 1.8mm x 0.8mm (link to tip), and to be honest, it is a bit of a pain, and my results are patchy (some of this is likely me - I'm a bit rusty here) and I'm worried about bridging between the Data and GND lines:



Is there a different style and size of soldering tip that people would suggest for this application?

Also, for the jig, I'm using a Solder M8 - however, these are COB strips, and there's a white protrusion which makes means the teeth don't really grip properly, and the strips keep slipping.

Thanks,
Victor

[victorhooi]

Also, forgot to mention - the solder is I'm using is SN100C, and I've set the iron to 370 C.

[Someone]

Only solder? no wire?

[victorhooi]

Yeah, this is for joining two pieces of LED strip together.

I line up the pads, apply flux, and flow solder across the pads.

In other cases (e.g. at ends, or for power injections), I would solder wires onto the pads.

[Someone]

Join them with wire, even if adjacent/touching/close. Solder should only be a thin fillet.

[DaJMasta]

Why is your solder 100% tin?  Are you using flux?

[Phil1977]

Regarding that you just build solder bridges your skills seem to be quite good! Especially with SN100, which I personally have no good experiences with.

As already mentioned: If you just use a little piece of wire for each joint it will be much easier. Maybe you could also just use some kind of pin header between the LED strips, though it would probably cause a few mm of distance.

[ArdWar]

This style of joining is fine if the two PCB are rigidly connected relative to each other, with no vibration, flex/bending and differential expansion expected. For example between two PCB within a rigid case, each mounted with fixed screws near the join

Otherwise a short wire to relieve the forces acting on the pad should be *much* more reliable.