Despite all the growth forecasts of the smart textiles market, there is no stable automated manufacturing process for attaching classic electronics to textiles. The great amount of manual production steps causes high prices, which slow down market growth. During the production process, the contacting step offers the greatest potential to reduce manual manufacturing steps. For this reason, we have analyzed various contacting methods for electronic parts on conductive yarns that have a high potential for automation. The chosen methods were thermode soldering, insulation-displacement connectors and anisotropic conductive adhesives. In order to ensure reliable mechanical contacting, the samples were tested in a peeling experiment. The examination of the contact resistances took place in the context of a resistance test using four-wire measuring technology.Hot bar soldering is one of several solder processes for contacting PCB to textiles [4]. A pulsed heat thermode is used to join two pre-tinned parts. This technology is suitable for mass production and involves reliable processing conditions and results. It is a very cost-effective process because multiple connections can be made simultaneously and it has a fast temperature ramp-up and cool-down rate [5]. Hot bar soldering was developed for simultaneously soldering many wires (Figure 1a) [6]. It is a re-flow process using a thermode made of titanium [7] or molybdenum. For a defined force application a linear guide with a force gauge is used. By measuring the sinking path, correct positioning of the component and the melting of the solder can be determined [5,6,8,9]. The contacting process of the hot bar soldering system starts by pressing the thermode with a defined force on the contact point. For many processes a force of less than 20 N is sufficient. The thermode heats and cools according to the reflow profile [7]. Overall, thermode soldering is relatively easy to automate. The automated positioning of the contact partners is one of the challenges which can be simplified through positioning pins. Woznicki [10] describes problems with very small pad pitches [10].
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