Soldering Islands, by KE3FL

My use of the term "Soldering Islands" is also called Manhattan Style in circuit building. The pdf file at, Manhattan.pdf, is a good article on the Manhattan Style of circuit construction. Today, the hint I have is in using a material we all throw away or recycle. This past week I noticed that my wife had recycled a wax paper box. It wasn't very flat, so I removed it in order to take it apart and flatten it. I noticed that the metal cutting edge was still attached to the box so I removed it to place it into a different recycling bag.

In looking at it, I wondered if I could solder something to it. So instead of recycling it, I tested it and found that soldering to it worked very well. I decided to make a night light joule thief circuit using two small pieces of this material as soldering islands. These islands made soldering multiple wires to the same point very easy even though they were not attached to some kind of board.


Photo 1: shows two soldering islands cut from the wax paper cutting strip


Photo 2: shows the finished joule thief night light in a box with the soldering islands hidden under the inductor.

To see more information about a Joule Thief circuit and more photos of this night-light and schematics, you can visit my KE3FL web site at: Joule Thief Experiments

Phil Karras, KE3FL