My Cable Extension

[Mr.Kh]

This is just a breif overview of how I extended my FFC. Might be helpful for some out there.

My LCD is a Samsung 152T. Really nice desktop display - haven't played around with it too much in projection(only a couple vids and stuff) - but it looks good so far. In this monitor there is one 20 pin .5mm pitch FFC which requires extending.

Now I've gotten around to extending the flat flex cable and I've got a few pics.

First I ordered a bit of stuff from Digikey(all .5mm pitch stuff):
Some 20 and 30 pin suface mount(SMD) FFC sockets:
HFK20CT-ND
HFK30CT-ND
And some 6" Jump lengths of FFC:
HFF-20U-06-ND
HFF-30U-06-ND


Using two of the SMDs I planned to solder or nickle print paint them in contact back to back. Like so:

In the above picture the blue arrows indicate where the FFC would slide in, and the red boxes are the SMD contacts (I need to join the two red sets of 20 pins together). The two SMD's when put back to back as shown, but touching, should make an "extender" or a female/female 20 pin/0.5mm gender changer.

The actual 20pin SMD's up close:

At first I tried to solder them together, but I couldn't find my soldering iron so I was trying to use one with a fairly large tip, and I couldn't get the solder to stay on one pin, it was flwoing all over the place (causing shorts). So I was like - - and decided - solder wasn't going to work out right now. So I decided to clamp the two SMDs back to back and apply some nickle print paint to each set of pins (this paint is conductive). So I cut out a couple peice of acrylic and got some nuts and bolts and made a little clamp - really simple, could be done with wood and possibly even metal (just watch out it doesn't short and connections).

Before I got to the nickle print however I decided to test if the back to back clamping was causing sufficient contact, to my suprise all 20 connections had a low resistance (meaning they were in electrical contact). I deicided to plug it in and see if it would work with the lcd.

And it did!


So it's a solderless, fairly easy cable extension. Unfortunately the SMD's and jump cable isn't real cheap through digikey the 2 SMDs and 1 6"(the longest they stock) jump length cost about $10CAD + shipping, handling and time - it can be kinda expensive if you need more than 6" extension. Its not a lot of money but keep it in mind when comparing the cost of 2 LCDs.

One problem I had was getting the cable to stay in the SMDs, the way the clamps work on these particular SMDs is a flip rotary clamp, and its kinda tricky to get both in the clamps when they're so close together.

Is it loose? Nope. It doesn't flicker when I jiggle it, and those little SMDs aint going anywhere. After I got it clamped in I cranked down the screws/nuts andmade sure it was conductive and functional.

Since the picture of the assembly I've cut down the acrylic a bit and the screws a lot - the less weight in the assembly the better. But it's really not that heavy - and the rotary clamp on the SMD sufficiently holds the assembly in mid air.

Any Q's or comments welcome.

[faithblinded]

Kudos to you KH. A very simple, elegant, clean solution. Being solderless is great. If I ever have to extend a cable, this is how I will do it for sure.
Excellent thinking.

[Kim Turley]

very nice guide, I was thinking of extending the cable on my lcd, i might wait until i get a better one first though

[ktulu909]

WOO HOO this does indeed work,but what I did was VERY VERY VERY carefully epoxy the two connectors together instead of clamping them together.

Just one thing,if you go with the epoxy,apply it with something VERY small,like a q-tip or something similar.And make sure you dont get epoxy on the metal contacts.

[Dejavu]

i ordered some cables from digikeyand they are to big. could your tell me what cable you got. I know the cable i need is less then a 1" wide

[jcbklyny]

Mr Kh gave the part numbers in his first post. They would work with any panel with a .5 pitch flex cable up to 20 connections.

I picked up a few myself and they would work with the NEC1560M also. You would just need 16 of the 20 connections.


JCB


____________________
www.diybuildergroup.com

[Mr.Kh]

The two cables pictured above are both under 1" wide, at .5mm pitch the 20 connector cable (not in bag in pictures) is about 1/2" and the 30 connector cable is about 3/4" (in the bag in the pictures above).

The part numbers I listed:
HFF-20U-06-ND
HFF-30U-06-ND

Are digikey part numbers you should be able to find them in the catalogue or on the website.

If you're uncertain of what cable your panel uses, I foudn the easiest way to find the pitch and connector count, is to scan the cable or connector on the lcd at high resolution, and count or measure it.

Hope that helps

[flyguy]

I have a 152T on the way and would like to go ahead and order the cable/connector from Digikey. Did you use the 20- or 30-pin cable/connector?

[Mr.Kh]

It was the 20 Pin(30 pin was for a different LCD); however, as this article is quite old, my own methods of extension have changed and simplified. Trust me when I say this is good news. I don't have the details on part numbers right now, but I can check at home this evening - I caneven remember if I got the new parts at digikey or some other supplied.

But the jist of the new cable extension is using one vertical mount SMD and squishing two FFCs into the one slot, contacts facing each other, and lock the SMD connector in the closed position.

[flyguy]

Thanks for the update. I took a guess and ordered the 20-pin cable and SMD connectors (from the orginal idea) Sunday, so I'll at least give it a shot. If you could post the part number of the new connector, that would be wonderful.