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Step 3The Leg Wire's Connected to the Hip Wire
Remember Stumpy? You saved those last few inches of cable, right? Use your wire cutters to nibble into the insulation around Stumpy's cut end until you can peel the insulation back an inch or so, exposing a thin metal sheath, a lot of stranded wire, and four wires with colored insulation around them. Find the setting on your wire stripper that takes off the colored insulation from these colored wires without pulling out any strands of actual metal.
After you strip each end, roll the bare wires in your fingers until the strands of wire are twisted around each other. This will keep loose strands from one wire from accidentally making contact with another wire and ruining your day.
Use your wire cutters to open the housing on Stumpy's USB connector, so that you can get at the four pins inside the end. A little like opening a can of beans. Mmm, shiny conductive beans.
Now we're going to test continuity so we can find out which pins inside the USB connector go with each color wire inside the cable. Put your multimeter into resistance mode (ohms) or continuity mode, and clip or press Stumpy's wires to either lead. With the other lead, touch each pin until you see a low resistance reading or the continuity alarm sounds. Write down which color went with which pin. You can start numbering them from the top, bottom, left, or right. My list looked like this when I was done:
Red - pin 1
White - pin 2
Green - pin 3
Black - pin 4
And what about that big mess of stranded wire? Test it against the connector's housing -- bingo!
Hold Stumpy's connector up to the USB socket we found in step 1 as if you were going to plug it in. Note how your numbering scheme lines up with the circuitboard pins leading to the USB port.
After you strip each end, roll the bare wires in your fingers until the strands of wire are twisted around each other. This will keep loose strands from one wire from accidentally making contact with another wire and ruining your day.
Use your wire cutters to open the housing on Stumpy's USB connector, so that you can get at the four pins inside the end. A little like opening a can of beans. Mmm, shiny conductive beans.
Now we're going to test continuity so we can find out which pins inside the USB connector go with each color wire inside the cable. Put your multimeter into resistance mode (ohms) or continuity mode, and clip or press Stumpy's wires to either lead. With the other lead, touch each pin until you see a low resistance reading or the continuity alarm sounds. Write down which color went with which pin. You can start numbering them from the top, bottom, left, or right. My list looked like this when I was done:
Red - pin 1
White - pin 2
Green - pin 3
Black - pin 4
And what about that big mess of stranded wire? Test it against the connector's housing -- bingo!
Hold Stumpy's connector up to the USB socket we found in step 1 as if you were going to plug it in. Note how your numbering scheme lines up with the circuitboard pins leading to the USB port.
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Oct 28, 2009. 3:06 PMswmcd
says:
It may be easier to just plug stumpy into the USB port and then test continuity directly from the stripped wire ends to the solder pads on the PC board.
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