Ideas For Fixing Keyboard Wire

[MrAl]

Hi there,

I am looking for ideas for fixing a keyboard wire that continues to break. What happens is the outside jacket of the wire is so stiff that it cracks if it bends back and forth too much. With somewhat normal usage it breaks about once every 6 months and has to be fixed.

The outside jacket covers the internal wires of which there are 4 plus a ground. The shield covers the four wires plus the ground wire, and the ground wire makes contact with the shield. It's a standard USB wire with a male USB A on the end of it (plugs into computer USB jack) and the other end goes directly inside the keyboard without any connector and there is no cord strain relief on that end either.

So i am looking for ideas on how to fix the wire, or if you know of a good USB wire that is very very flexible and will last for a long time i might replace the whole wire.

Any ideas, thoughts, comments will be appreciated.

Photo 1 shows the original damaged wire. Photo 2 shows what it looks like when it is opened up, showing the red wire broken too and it shorts to the ground shield and kills the USB signal for any device plugged into that set of USB jacks.

Believe it or not this is a 60 dollar USD keyboard, made by Logitech. It has two color illumination so purchasing another one would not be cost effective especially since it would break too.

 

[KJ6EAD]

What's keeping you from replacing the whole cord with another, more flexible one?

 

[MrAl]

Hi,

Well i thought about using a 'regular' USB cable, but i noticed that the wiring inside a regular cable is much thinner than the wire in the keyboard wire. Yes it should work, but i wonder how long it would last. I guess i was hoping for a heavy duty cord that is also flexible or just another way to fix this. Right now i just hot glue the cord to the back of the keyboard and hot glue the connections or use tape temporarily. It works for about 6 months like that before it needs another redo. Getting tired of fixing it now though

 

[Mickster]

How about an inexpensive USB mouse cable?

They are subject to flexing, far in excess of that of a keyboard in 'normal' use.

What is causing the keyboard cable to break? Is it on a workstation which has a pull-out keyboard surface or something similar?


EDIT:

but i noticed that the wiring inside a regular cable is much thinner than the wire in the keyboard wire.

Note to self:
Got to post faster!

 

[cr0sh]

The only time I have ever seen damage like that to a cable, it was because something was gnawing on it.

Rather than hot glue, have you tried epoxy? Also - have you verified that in "normal use" you aren't crimping the cable somehow?

I've never seen anything like this in almost 30 years of computer usage; all of my cables from when I was a kid are still more than serviceable, and for the majority of stuff I use day to day, most of it is castoff or goodwill junk (right now I am typing on an old PS2 Model-M, for instance). I just can't imagine a keyboard cable looking that bad from ordinary use (even with a bit of moving around, etc)...

???

 

[MrAl]

Hi,

I guess i move my keyboard around a lot. But what really bites is this cable has a jacket that is so rigid that it cracks so easy. The keyboard is over a year old now and you can still see the bends in it from when it was packaged in the box where the cable had to be bent in several places to fit it into the box it was packaged in. I've never seen anything like this either. I've had other keyboards do this, but not nearly as bad as this one.
My mouse cable broke near the mouse body on an older mouse but i've fixed that several times (until the mouse died completely that is).

Mickster:
I guess i could try an older mouse USB cable, it's made from silicone wire and it is made for gaming which they mean flexing a lot. Wont be easy to do though because they are tiny wires in that thing. Would be interesting to see how long that lasts however.

 

[Mickster]

Hi Al,

just been thinking that if you could identify the root cause behind the cable being subjected to repeated stress, such as being on a retractable surface which is regularly cycled, or some other scenario, recognising and changing the actual cable routing may be a more effective solution.

 

[KJ6EAD]

Take your pick.

High flexibility USB cable.

http://www.l-com.com/productfamily.aspx?id=7417

Spiral cable armor.

http://www.delikon.com/at.html

E-Chain.

http://www.igus.com/iPro/iPro_01_0002_0007_USen.htm?c=US&l=en

Strain relief.

http://www.heyco.com/Strain_Relief_...Lockit-Pigtail&section=Strain_Relief_Bushings

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

Nice find on the flex cables. I do get L-com's quick catalog, but not the full one.

I was looking for something a while ago for USB. These guys http://gothamaudiousa.com/ have some super flexible cables. I did find one that I thought could be suitable for USB, but never put it to use. You can get 1' samples. I wanted one for a USB pen scanner. I don't use the scanner much, so I gave up on making a cable for it.

USB does use one twisted pair and then heavier ones for power.

 

[MrAl]

Hi,

Mickster:
Have no choice really, have to move the keyboard around here and there. Not sure what else i could do yet.

KJ6:
Oh yes nice find on the flex cable. Something like that could possibly last a long time for this application. Little pricey at 15 bucks for two meters though :-(
But that gave me another idea too...which is to use a A female connector on the keyboard, and an A to A male flex cable. This way when the cable goes, just pull it out and plug in a new one. I can live with that every 6 months or more. The connector shouldnt be too hard to connect to the side or bottom or upper portion of the keyboard with some epoxy. I dont know why they dont make them like this anyway. When the cable goes on most keyboards it can be a pain to fix. Other devices (except mice) use plug in cables like printers, hubs, etc. Yeah a little funny on a keyboard but with a locking mechanism it could work very nicely. Might unplug once in a while but who cares.
I have a connector around somewhere im sure so dont even need to purchase that.

 

[ericgibbs]

hi Al,
Have you considered a 'curly' cable eg: coiled as per a desk phone cable.??

E.

 

[MrAl]

Hi Eric,

Interesting idea, but do they make USB cables like that? This has to handle normal USB 2.0 signals so it would have to be rated for that service.

 

[ericgibbs]

Hi Eric,

Interesting idea, but do they make USB cables like that? This has to handle normal USB 2.0 signals so it would have to be rated for that service.

hi Al,
Just one of many links.
https://www.google.co.uk/products/c...a=X&ei=39bVT_2jD4bj8QOIydi7Aw&ved=0CH0Q8wIwAA

E.

 

[alec_t]

Have no choice really, have to move the keyboard around here and there. Not sure what else i could do yet.

At 60 $ a pop for your keyboard wouldn't it be cheaper/simpler to get a wireless one instead

 

[MrAl]

Hi again,

Eric: thanks for the link.

alec: This keyboard has multi colored backlighting, and extensive macro capability. It's the Logitech G110. The Logitech K800 for example doesnt have macros. Also, im not wanting to spend another 70 dollars nor have to recharge the keyboard.

ADDED LATER:
That K800 looks like a pretty nice keyboard though. i hate to spend another 70 or more bucks though and have to junk this one.

 

[MrAl]

Hello again,


It's been several months now and the keyboard gave up again. I had fixed it by repairing the wire last time, and it frayed again so i had to repair it again.

This time i was determined to at least try something different. Ok, so it went 6 or more months without needing repair, but this time i wanted to try something new.

I had an old defunct mouse with a really nice USB cable with special types of internal wires and a very flexible silicone outer cable jacket as this was a good quality gaming mouse. I thought that would make a really nice keyboard cable, so i removed it from the mouse body.

Now once i got past the break in the wire (again) i was able to use the old cable (very stiff outer jacket which kept cracking) just to make sure the keyboard still functioned ok. It was ok, so after testing the old mouse cable i connected it to the keyboard. Unfortunately, on plugging it into the USB port, the system rejected the keyboard and so it would not auto install or be recognized. Measuring the plus 5 volt supply, i saw that it was just too low so the keyboard would not function.

The problem was that the original mouse did not draw much current so the specialized internal wires (which were very small diameter and wound to allow flex without breakage) were dropping too much voltage as the keyboard has a lot of functions on it including another USB port so it demands a lot more current, which of course pulls the voltage down at the keyboard end of the cable. So i had to scrap that idea.

Plan B (which was plan A at one point anyway) was to connect a USB female connector to the keyboard wires, and then plug in an ordinary A/B USB cable (used on printers and other stuff) and that way if the cable became faulty again it would just be a matter of grabbing another cable and plugging it in and that would be that.

So after connecting the B type female USB connector to the wiring of the keyboard, it was plugged in and tested and all turned out well this time. So now there is a B USB connector on the keyboard so the keyboard itself has NO cable to break. If the cable does break now, it just needs replacing by unplugging the old one and plugging in the new one.

It wasnt quite a simple as it sounds however to install a connector like this on the keyboard. I didnt want to modify the keyboard too much but still get the connector mounted solidly. Here's where we enter a ton of hot glue
Ok, maybe not a ton, but almost 3 cubic inches of hot glue (whatever that weighs).

The result was a huge blob of hot glue which firmly holds down the wiring and also the connector. It actually took a few hours to get all that hot glue on there, but it was a matter of applying some and then coming back later and applying some more, in order to let it cool between applications.

The starting pic is where the wiring and connector is just tacked down with some dabs of hot glue, that's the pic where you can see the connector clearly. The finish picture is the finished product after 3 cubic inches of hot glue where added in various application layers and that's the one where you cant see the connector very well. Despite how horrid it looks, it can not be seen normally because it's all on the bottom of the keyboard.

I hope you've enjoyed this little story and gained some insight about repairing keyboard wires. And thanks for all the ideas from everyone here.