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Flat ribbon cable

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be80be

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I have some flat ribbon cable that hooks up a keypad that the end have broke and the flat wire
has wore out.

How do remove the covering to get at new flat wire I tried scraping off the topside but the flat wire come out and makes it unusable.

View attachment 69064
 
I have used a soldering iron to burn back the plastic, then carefully cleaned and tinned. It is easier to buy a new piece, if possible.

John
 
It is easier to buy a new piece, if possible.
John

I believe that but this stuff is handy I've used it to hook up cel phone LCD's but this has to plug back in the controller board. And at $250 a keypad I need to figure how to fix these keypads I have about 5 to fix.

The keypad is them flat film type that stick on like a sticker
 
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Is this cable just an extension of the pattern that runs around the keypad? If so, the 'wires' are probably screen printed conductive paint, rather than etched metallic foil like a PCB is. As such, the conductors may disintegrate without the base material.
 
Chris your right it is some kind o conductive paint plugging them in over the years has wore it off.

I'm thinking maybe I'll try a conductive pin to fix them..
 
Or you could try conductive paint/epoxy :)
 
Well I was thinking a Precision conductive ink pen I've tried the masking tape and sandpaper but the time you get the 8 tracks insulation removed you sanded one of them to far and end back where I started
 
Have you tried heat and solder? It is not easy, but here is an adapter I made last year. I cut the original ribbon in half, then soldered wires to each cut end to make a breakout. Heat shrink and a little masking tape on the back gave support.

View attachment 69080

My cable was CviLux. Its conductors are tinned copper, not conductive paint as described here:

https://www.electro-tech-online.com/custompdfs/2012/12/FFC-CAT.pdf

Its insulation is PET (polyethylene terephthalate), which melts at 250°C and decomposes at 350°C. You only need to remove the insulation from one surface.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene_terephthalate


John
 
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Soldering to something that is painted on is going to be a bit harder -- impossible -- because of the matrix. Good luck.

If it is really important, and you want to play chemist, you might consider one of the methods reported in 2012 to rebuild the contact with precipitated silver (i.e., a modified Tollens reacton). The methods use silver acetate or diethanol amine to give reasonably thick and solderable coatings. I suspect you are better off, though, in the immediate future with what has already been suggested.

John
 
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Well I'm working on a replacement board and going to use 4 buttons but the problem is figuring this thing out I don't want to cut it open and I cant get good contacts to test with LOL
 
hi burt. i fixed something like this not so long ago. i used sticky copper tape from believe it or not a garden centre they were selling it for slug replent! it comes in a real and has a thin plastic covering to the non sticky side, this you peel off. if you leave it on tho you can cut it into realy fine strips then blast it with the heat gun and the plastic covering just shrinks away! its then just a case of laying it over where you want it and pressing down! it should go over the worn bits no problem. cant find a link to the stuff but hopefuly you know the stuff i mean
 
Thanks ghostman that's a lot cheaper then the pen and I think it would wear better too.
 
ive used the stuff for all sorts! its easy to solder to as well. ive used it for part of a alram system on glass windows sticks great! worked realy well on my flat cable, took me a while to cut the thin strips but ive got shakey hands lol
 
I tried patching a cable similar to yours with no success whatsoever. Whatever I did, I could not make contact to the conductors. The conductors seems to be a conductive oxide and any removal of the insulation would result in removing the oxide, so I could not even make a mechanical contact to something exposed.

I think the cable was made by depositing a conductive oxide and then sputtering a metallic contact on the end.

The cable I had in an instrument was severely oxidized at the ends.

I was expecting a cable with real metal conductors inside.
 
That's sounds like mine but the dang thing is not cheap and I have 20 of them that are bad the newer ones have copper or should I say the two that worked after cleaning the cable and the connector.
 
Your pic looks exactly like what I had. Try a letter to the manufacturer with the same photos. A well-done letter worked for me.
 
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