Repairing a broken ribbon cable.

[joester]

Or more appropriately,
"Oh FRIG!!!! How in blue blazes did that happen?!?!?!"

Sure enough, as careful as we are, we will eventually have a momentary lapse of attention that damages something, In this case, the Trackpoint cable on an i-Series.

The weird thing is that I had removed the keyboard and was free and clear of the base. As I turned to put it on the desk behind my work area, it snagged between a roll of solder I have on the shelf beside me and the shelf. One in a million shot. But, that's my luck sometimes.

Anyway, I need to repair this and find a decent replacement.

My methodology was based on another post I read from a long time ago, and I took pictures while I worked. If I can do this with what I have on hand, Any decent solderer can do it.

My apologies for poor photography. I have the Kodak Fun-Saver of the digital world that does not have macro capabilities.

First, preparation. I sanded off the ends (top side only) of the polyamide covering to expose the traces. a few inches of my 3" wide electrical tape to protect the bottom of the keyboard, two pieces of polyamide from a donor assembly precut and double sticky taped, a slightly modified solder iron, My T21 playing Nickle Creek, and I'm ready.
Sure enough, it's broken
I positioned the cable on top of the patch baseto match up the ends as closely as possible.
I don't own a microscope, but I have a fold up magnifier that works pretty well. I taped the magnifier over the ribbon cable and securely held the ribbon cable in place. I had some 30Ga. stranded wire on hand, so I stripped and tinned a few of the strands to join the ends of the break. My setup looked like this.
Everything in place, I tinned the ends of the traces.
Starting from the outermost trace, I soldered the top end of the wire into place, then formed the wire to match the curvature required for the mating trace. As I was getting done with trace #3, I needed a break so I took this picture. The bottom was not yet trimmed.
After about 45 minutes of work, all traces repaired. Prior to adhering the top pf the patch, I used my finest pick and tweezers to bend the tips of the wires to prevent shorting to adjacent conductors. If you do this patch, remember to hold the wire down at the solder joint. Unwanted flexing will degrade the solder joint.
Top piece applied, and I'm done.

At the time of this posting, I have not yet tested the patch. The laptop needs to have the OS installed, and that comes tomorrow.

Joe

P. S. to Mods: If there is a better place for this post, feel free to move it.

[phool@round]

Nice post Joe!!!!

Great "just in case this happens to you" fix for when you don't have the spare parts, don't want to wait for replacements.

Pics loaded fast and the detail was excellent. Didn't need macro at all. I'm using one of my 760's just like the old days, using dialup (28.8k) and W98. (Firewalled and AV'd.)

Liked the wire wrapped around the iron, another good trick to remember.

Very worthwhile, thanks for taking the time to put it all together.

Let us know how it turns out when you install the OS.....

[joester]

Thanks. I couldn't get my fill of upgrading, until I found that the thing needs the BIOS updated to recognize the 30GB HDD. The service disk program won't run without a fully charged battery, so I guess I go to bed while it charges.

Dang. I was pumped too.

Joe

[phool@round]

.......sweet dreams, tomorrow will be a brand new upgrade day filled with wonder and awe!!!!

I'm still not finished walking my 760XD.......can't get enough! I just powered it up (sorta late) tonight for the first time in 6 months.

Love the old stuff......... didn't have my power adapter so I rigged one up using the power plug from an R50 and using it's power supply connected to the + and - pins instead of all four.........awesome!

[joester]

What stinks is that it's not mine, so I don't get to play with it much once done.

BIOS updated, HDD recognized, XP started, formatting.... formatting... formatting...

<EDIT>
I have up, down, left, and right and the buttons appear to work too!

Now to let the OS finish installing.

Joe

[joester]

With the repair done and XP installed, the i-1400 didn't respond as nicely as I would be happy with. I ended up reformatting to FAT32 and installing W98. The owner replaced the TP pad and the sluggishness is apparently gone. He will be installing the maximum in RAM, and I may re-try the XP installation. XP has so much more to offer to a non software inclined user (Not the owner, his daughter).
Will update if this happens.

Joe

[thinkpad adrian]

xp need a MINIMUM of 128 megs, and yes, microsoft will tell you
it can be done with 64, but with constant paging. to run decent,
you need 164 to 196. when ever it starts to write to virtual memory, things REALLY REALLY slow down. also, you need MORE than a 233 mmx processor to run xp. i tried with a 233mmx, and it was a wast of time. 98se runs fine on
32 megs, and real good on 64. adrian