Step 2: LED assemblies

Materials and tools:

  • Wood dowels with attached PDBs (from step 1)

  • LED strips

  • 22AWG solid core wire (from bag A in kit of parts)

Steps:

  1. Get the LED strip(s). If they have any wires soldered, de-solder them; remove excess solder using a braid wick. If you ordered 1m or 2m strips, cut them into 50 cm pieces, making sure to leave as large as possible soldering pads in the beginning of each strip (this should be easy, as usually longer strips are created by soldering together 50cm ones, so you will be just undoing someone else’s work).

  2. Tin the pads in the beginning of each LED strip. Warning: LED strips are directed!! in each strip, the signal goes in one direction only, as indicated by the arrows. You should tin the pads in the beginning of the strip, so that arrows go from tinned pads to the opposite end - see photos below.

  3. Solder 2cm long pieces of 22AWG wire to each of the pads. The easiest way to do it is as follows:

    • Strip 2cm of insulation from the end of wire; do not cut it yet.

    • Holding the wire by insulated part, solder the stripped end to the pad. You will be soldering very close to the first LED, so please watch your iron carefully - do not touch the LED!

    • Cut the wire. To make the next steps easier, trim the wires so that they are of different lengths (length of each should be at least 1 cm)

    Soldering wire to LED strip
    Soldering wire to LED strip

  4. Remove the backing paper from the first 5-10 cm of adhesive strip on the back of the LED. Insert the soldered wires into the holes of the power distribution board you had previously attached to the wood dowels and attach the strip to the wood dowel, aligning it so that the beginning of the strip is about 5mm away from the power distribution board. Remove the remaining backing paper and attach the strip to the dowel.

  5. Solder the wires to the power distribution board. Trim them using flush cutters. Repeat the previous steps for all 4 LED strips, placing two LED strips on each dowel, on opposite sides of the dowel.

Soldering wire to LED strip

Note: the adhesive on LED strips is not very strong, so your strips might start peeling off. It is OK; we will make a more permanent attachment later.