This week, guest blogger Jason Ghidella talks about solder joints.

I say “sōl-dər”

After reading Michael Carone’s blog post on smart signal routing, I was immediately motivated to talk about solder joints as I think they are the other half of the story when it comes to making models easier to build and work with.

Being from Australia I pronounce solder as sōl-dər, and that sometimes gets confused and funny looks from my colleagues here at MathWorks.

Jason says (Australian):

Seth says (American):

Guy says (Quebecois / Canadian):

With Release 2012b, the frequency with which we talk about solder joints has skyrocketed exponentially. >I will not go into details, but I am sure everyone who worked with Simulink has had a few fights with solder joints. Let's see how this is improved in R2012b

Creating and Merging

Solder joints are now created when necessary, and merged when no longer needed. Here is an example:

Moving with Blocks

If I select two blocks on either side of a solder joint, and move the blocks, the solder joint moves along with the blocks:

Minimum Disturbance

The minimum disturbance principle used for smart signal routing is preserved for the solder joints as well. If you have a kink in the signal line, the solder joint stays in place. Straighten out the signal line kink, and the solder joint moves with the block. I demonstrate that here:

Now it's your turn

I hope you appreciate the improvements to solder joints and the new Simulink Editor in R2012b. I also hope you will remember that solder can be pronounced in a couple of very different ways.

Let us know what you like about the new Simulink Editor by leaving a comment here.