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Wiring and Circuits (2019)
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Wiring and Circuits (2019)

Wires

Mini Challenge Styrofoam-core Posterboard

Create the following board using a piece of cardboard or styrofoam-core posterboard.
Foam Posterboard
Foam Posterboard
Instructions:
  1. Attach your LED and coin cell battery to the board where indicated.
  2. Use wires to electrically connect the LED and coin cell so the LED lights up. It's okay if your setup isn't very stable for now.
+ Show Hint(s)
  1. You will need two wires.
  2. Connect the + side of the battery to the long leg of the LED, and the - side of the battery to short leg of the LED.
  3. Make sure the metal conductor parts of the wires touch the metal legs (on the LED) and the metal surfaces on the battery.
  4. You will have some trouble keeping the wires in place at this stage. Use electrical tape if you absolutely need to.

How To: Prepare Wires

Our lessons use 16 AWG stranded copper wire, which is a type commonly used to set up home speaker systems.

Preparing Wires: Required items and tools

To begin preparing wires, you will need the following:

  • 16 AWG Wire 16 AWG Wire
  • Wire Cutters and Strippers Wire Cutters and Strippers
Step 1: Unroll length of wire

Unroll the length of wire you need from the spool.

Step 2: Use wire cutter / stripper to cut length of wire

Use your wire cutters (or cutting blade on the crimping tool) to cleanly cut loose the section wire you want. This involves sharp cutting edges, so use caution!

  • Since many systems use more than one wire, it's common to pack them together. However, for this lesson, we only need one.
  • First, see if you can simply pull one of the two inner wires out. If so, that's all you need.
  • If the wires will not come loose, use the wire cutter or a pair of scissors to cut open the outer insulation layer holding the multiple wires together. Start at one end, and cut lengthwise down the wire.
  • You should now have at least one individual wire!
Step 3: Expose conductive core

You will need to expose a small amount of the conductive metal inside the wire on each end. Do this by cutting off a small portion of just the plastic insulation around the wire on both sides.

  • If you need to expose more conductor, use a wire stripper.
  • If you have a AWG style wire stripper, find the hole that matches the size of wire you have, place the wire through the hole, and squeeze the handle firmly. Twist the wire back and forth until the insulator is cut, and the conductor slides out smoothly.
  • If you have a Tapered or Diagonal style cutter, place the cutting head where you want to trim to, and cut "around" the outside by squeezing the blade down gently on the outside of the insulator, and rotating the blade and wire back and forth to saw through the insulation without damaging the conductor inside.
Step 4: Complete wire preparations

Your wire should look similar to this, with about a quarter inch of exposed conductive core.

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