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- In a previous video, in a series of videos on LED strips,
something he likes to call led-tape,
we looked at soldering to the actual led-tape itself.
What have you got in front of you today, Gordon?
- Okay, I've got the SolderM8, and we'd literally
just finished making the video on soldering led-tape
and this popped up in our Instagram feed
so we thought we'd grab one, and see what it's all about.
It's a product designed by an electrician, for electricians
and we love that at eFIXX.
If you check out our hashtag #Innovationcorner
or the playlist you'll see some of
those other great inventions.
And it's designed to basically help that process
of attaching the wire to the LED tape.
- And if you look for an Unearthed video,
he might put it in the "i" above his head
or in the card at the end of the video,
you'll see my attempt at soldering to this LED strip
with a 15 year gap from holding a soldering iron.
You watch that masterclass video
if you wanna have a little laugh on my behalf.
But let's see if this product can
actually make our life easier.
Okay then, so let's see if this SolderM8
can save electricians' time, Gordon.
- [Gordon] Okay, so I'm just gonna bring my led-tape in,
put it down under this clamp we've got here,
I'm just gonna quickly tin the pads up here.
It says in the instructions you don't necessarily need
to do this, but we're following OSRAM's instructions,
so I'll just tin me iron up.
Obviously, I'm on camera, so I'm shaking around.
- [Gary] Okay, I'm a bit concerned that looks like that's
made of plastic and you're obviously gonna introduce
a lot of heat now Gordon, is there
anything that's gonna stop that from melting?
- [Gordon] Yeah, so it's got this good metal,
little metal plate behind it.
Now normally, we'd say,
"Don't solder when it's in your extrusion."
because it sucks all the heat out,
but that there is not huge,
so it's not gonna necessarily do that.
So I've done that there, I'm just gonna now introduce
the wires I've prepared.
I'll put my positive in there on my red,
and bring on the black, just push them down.
So then I'm gonna go back in with the soldering iron-
- [Gary] This is looking incredibly easy at the minute.
- [Gordon] And make that connection.
Hold on, tin that up, just get that ready
so it's all flowing, then I'm in.
Push down, this is normally the bit where
your wire wanders all over the place
and it makes it incredibly difficult
to do that connection, or it springs back up
while the solder's still wet.
There you go, made that connection and those wires,
have a close look in there...
Yeah, fantastic.
- Well that looked easy.
Well you're not home and dry yet Gordon,
because we haven't livened it up
so you might've shortened that track out.
- Right let's see, proof's in the pudding
strip that- - Here we go, moment of truth.
- Strip that, let's make sure I get these
the right way round, it's Friday afternoon,
anything could happen.
- Only need to get it to light up.
- Red to red, black to black, up the lab power supply.
- [Gary] Here we go.
- Drumroll. Oh, There we go, marvelous.
Now that was easy.
- Yeah, it was.
I think the proof in the pudding will be
if ever I have a go with it,
if you see that Unearthed one of me.
- Unearthed 2: Revenge of Gary's soldering.
- Yeah, that was effortless wasn't it?
Just laid the LED strip in, laid the conductors in,
bang, soldered.
- Yeah, really easy.
There's some other little features to look at,
depends on where you're working,
I'll just take that out of there.
Magnetic base on the back, so if I just drop that
on top of the power supply there, you'll see that.
So if I was doing a lot of this at my workbench,
I'd probably set up and put a bit of steel on the bench.
- [Gary] Yeah, sure.
- Just to make it even more secure.
Obviously this is single color led-tape, y'know,
huge pads relative to when you start looking at RGB led-tape
and we've actually got some RGBW led-tape.
- Right.
- Which you've gotta think, you've got a common connection
and then four individual circuits on there
so that's five soldered connections to make to the led-tape.
So that takes an incredibly steady hand,
probably need a smaller tip on the soldering iron.
- And maybe that's a challenge we can have in the future
on a different video presentation.
- Yeah, well, we're gonna be looking at that led-tape,
so you can have a go Gary.
- So the SolderM8 soldering clip, do we believe,
Gordon, it makes an electrician's life easier?
- Absolutely.
- And we like that, eFIXX.
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