Tech #11 – Finishing my Flashlight

In tech, I finally started working on soldering my battery, wires, and LED light together. First, I soldered my shortest wire to my battery. Before you solder, you have to make a hook on the end of the wire with a tool. Then, you attach the hook to the battery. I cut a piece of soldering wire and heated up my soldering iron by placing it on the object I was going to solder for five seconds. Then, I took my soldering wire and I put the soldering iron on top of it, so the soldering wire would melt and harden. After that, I soldered my other wire to my switch. This was the hardest part for me to solder because there was barely any space to put my soldering iron in. Eventually, I finished and moved on to soldering my wire to my LED light.

On my LED light, there is a long leg and a short leg. The longer leg was the positive side and the shorter leg was the negative side. I had to bend the longer leg and make it as far apart as possible from the other leg because the flashlight won’t work if both wires are touching. I soldered my positive wire to the positive leg on the LED light. Finally, I had to solder all of the pieces together to connect them. After I completed that, I drilled a hole in the middle of my flashlight for my switch. Then, I put everything I soldered into the right places of my flashlight. I needed to put a cover on my switch to protect it from water. I put all my pieces together and tried it out, and luckily, it worked. This project was really fun and I’m so excited to do something new.