any way to fix the ribbon cable?!?!

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SHOdown

Member
Joined 2005
nick[x1] said:
I broke the 4 pin cable on my lilliput lcd and I tried repairing it and its impossible for me to do it as i dont have a steady enouth hand so i just melted the cable lol
O well never mind

Nice work SHOdown :)
Click to expand...


Thanks for the compliment, but I have faith you can do the repair!
It takes practice to be able to solder the way I do, but it CAN be done. If you are melting the plastic it is due to too high of tip heat, too long of tip to joint contact, or mis-application of tip (touching the plastic instead of the trace). Use a 0.5 to 2 mm max tip width when soldering these type of traces. A magnifying lamp can be a big help also. A non-magnetic helper stick can assist you in placing the wires.
Try placing your wire on the repair, in place for soldering then lay a toothpick across the repair at a 90 degree angle, then tape the ends of the toothpick down to secure the wire in place for soldering (I have not done this before, I am just trying to help you arrive at a solution to doing this without 5 pairs of hands)
 
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ta3834bbl

Member
Joined 2008
Well, I tried but didn't have the correct method I guess. With a 25w iron I burned through instantly, even wrapped a solid wire around the tip and used the end of the wire for the tip and it won't stick. Just burns through eventually. Still, awesome instructions. Thanks again for posting them. Todd
 
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doj

Member
Joined 2010
Tried to repair a broken flex ribbon in my Microwave today. Even though I wasn't successful, thank you SHOdown for your pictures and explanations. Guess I'm just an intermediate guy on the soldering iron. I'll just call the manufacturer on Monday and ask, what a replacement front panel costs. My guess however is, it will be just as expensive as buying a whole new Microwave...
 
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apairofdocs

Member
Joined 2011
N...N...NECRO POST!!

Sorry, just one more guy who joined just for this thread and I think I will be sticking around, this looks like a great forum. After a good bit of Googleing this is hands down the best tutorial I have seen for this problem. Big thanks to SHOdown. Very good guide. I don't know if I will use this method or try some other tricks (I believe the problem is the end of the cable a
 
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Appleeater

Member
Joined 2012
Hi, Thanks for posting with pictures. I have broken flex cable of the LED bulbs behind the LCD of Macbook air. I have to make 6 solders. The cable is broken in to two ( Apple refused to sell it, I must get it done by them costs 125€).
I have a microscope and a 0.2 tip on my 12w iron. I will give it a try tomorrow.
 
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bundat

Member
Joined 2012
Sorry for necroing, but that guide was amazing!

I wonder, can you reduce (or even remove) the soldering risk by instead using a hot air gun along with some soldering paste? That should allow even those of us with unstable hands to do this (if we manage to scrape it without re-tearing it).
 
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miknix

Member
Joined 2012
Hello everybody,

Thank you so much for this post. It certainly gave me a lot of ideas on how to repair my flex cable.

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(Sorry for the out of focus)
I accidentally cut the LCD ribbon cable on my ZTE v875 Android phone while disassembling. The cut crossed 5 tracks in the flex cable.

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This is my amateur workbench. Notice the double magnifying glass contraption to increase the zoom factor! After this I'm certainly going to buy a proper magnifying glass.

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.

Each of the tracks in the flex cable is around 0.3mm wide. I removed thin wire from headphone plugs (around 0.2mm wide) and used it as jumper wire to connect the broken tracks. The soldering iron tip is 2mm wide!!!! Needless to say, this was a huge pain in the *** to solder. I found that using Cyanoacrylate Glue (Super Glue), is very handy to hold the wires into place (I used a fumes mask), it also melts again into liquid when heated with the soldering iron, which allows repositioning the wires.
I tested the tracks for continuity and short-circuits. It certainly looks ugly but the phone is working again :)
 
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