Retro Hi-Fi Project

Step 3 Eloooongate Cables

I decided to elongate the ribbon cables connecting the display using left over IDE hard drive cabling. Luckily the spacing of the wires were the same (0.100" wire-to-wire). Other common sizes are available . . . check Digikey if you need another spacing.

I tried various ways to strip the ends of the wire, but finally ended up carefully slicing everything with an xacto knife, then pulling. Solder a wire on each end, then do all the wires in between them to help with keeping things aligned. Once everything was soldered up, I encased the connections with a non-conductive epoxy to prevent shorts if the wire were to get kinked.

The second picture shows just how much extension I needed!

Comments

[canyonmn]

I'm sure what you've got works perfectly, but for future use, there are "clip-on" ribbon cable ends that you could have clipped on both cables and created your extension that way. I get a headache just thinking about how difficult that soldering job must have been .. :-)

[jeffkobi]

ahh, just looked those up . . . yep definitely would've helped! unfortunately, most of the work was done in the wee hours of the morning when stores weren't open, and i "just wanted to get it done." luckily, i got my first soldering iron when i was about 8 (RC cars), so i've had a lot of practice!

[canyonmn]

Yes .. I noticed, after reading through your instructable, that you enjoy soldering .. so it probably wasn't a bit deal for you .. :-) Great job!!