Anyone soldered ribbon cables with big T-tip on soldering iron?


 

RKHanso

TVWBB Fan
I have to repair a display on my car's radio and can get a new LCD with ribbon cable attached to it, but the other end of the ribbon cable needs to be soldered to a board.

Here's the ebay auction of the part, and pictures of the part to replace as well as the soldering tip suggested to use:

From what I found, there is actually a glue on the ribbon cable that attaches it and it's not really soldered on. There are other versions that you don't have to heat up. The car originally comes with the ribbon cable, a silicone strip and metal u-channel clip that holds it all together with pressure. Unless that is also assembled with glue (I'm not sure). There are the 2 versions for the aftermarket repair.

Here's a picture of what someone used to 'solder' it on

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soldring-iron-t-tip-for-replacement-ribbon-cable-installation.jpg


Is this T-tip something I can get for my soldering iron
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I've never done any 'soldering' like this before. Is the silicone strip meant as a buffer to not melt the ribbon, but only heat the glue to attach it to the board?
Someone else online used their soldering iron on low and heated the glue on the ribbon cable and that worked OK for them.
I'm assuming they're still using the factory strip of silicon/foam and the metal clip to hold the ribbon cable onto the board.

Thanks.
 
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Yup, those LCD carbon ribbon cables aren't soldered (because the solder doesn't stick to the carbon I think) they're glued. So all you need is something to heat up the adhesive to get it to stick in place. The T bit is made to just go into the soldering iron tip hole and contact the heater core inside so I believe it could work with your iron, although because it doesn't have the set screw to hold it in place, it could fall out when you try to use it. The silicone is because the tip gets hot enough to melt the plastic that holds the ribbon together, so you don't want the metal to touch the plastic directly.

Another option if you can get the angle on it is to use an iron, the kind you use on clothes. Depending on the iron, it can either be set to a temperature low enough to do the job, or you can put a thin cloth or piece of paper or whatever it takes to get the temperature in the money zone. You can figure out the right temperature on the old ribbon. I don't have much experience with doing this, but I was hanging out with my friend working on his Saab and he made it look easy. Although it was the second time he had done it, so maybe it doesn't do as good a job if he had to do it twice!
 
Hi...as i have observed many include voltage drop. Low volt settings on DMM to see if components are bad, but still work. Like switches, relays or lengths of wire. Testing voltage from one end of wire or across a switch or fuse to the other should give minimal drop. This causes havoc in newer cars where 3/10v or more will give you big problems. Lose 1v and you can toss the part. If a car batteries when cranking fall below 10v.

printed circuit assemblies
 
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