azogar Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 the -ve cable to my laptops on/off switch has severed and it is bloody tiny! i have been able to shred the cable down to the copper wire on either side of the severed connection but i need to put in place some sort of wire bridge and insulate this thereafter. but its about 1mm thick, soldering is out of the question, black electrical tape is out of the question. i have seen these shrink fit sleeves on ebay but i'm thinking they are just plastic and will not resolve the extending issue. is there some sort of way i can bridge the gap and insulate it thereafter but on a micro level? thanks to anyone in advance who knows the solution! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ken_ichikawa Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 Blob solder it. twist the wire into a T shape, put a sleeve of 2mm shring tube on it first. Then heat up a small blob of solder then dip it into the blob. Then bend it downso that it is flat with the wire. Put a match on the shrink tube. Bingo you're done. Or just buy a tiny piece of bread board and solder it to THAT instead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Banner Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 the -ve cable to my laptops on/off switch has severed and it is bloody tiny! i have been able to shred the cable down to the copper wire on either side of the severed connection but i need to put in place some sort of wire bridge and insulate this thereafter. but its about 1mm thick, soldering is out of the question, black electrical tape is out of the question. i have seen these shrink fit sleeves on ebay but i'm thinking they are just plastic and will not resolve the extending issue. is there some sort of way i can bridge the gap and insulate it thereafter but on a micro level? thanks to anyone in advance who knows the solution! 1mm isn't small! I can't quite visualise it but, if it's like I think it may be, get some single core tinned copper wire and shape a link to fit. I would solder with a hot iron, tin both ends to be joined and hold them together whilst you apply heat from the iron. If you're no good at soldering, I think that silver loaded adhesives are available which may do the job. Once the link is fitted and tested, use strips of insulation tape, cut with a sharp knife, to make sure the link can't short out on any adjacent metal parts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikhail Liebenstein Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 1mm isn't small! I can't quite visualise it but, if it's like I think it may be, get some single core tinned copper wire and shape a link to fit. I would solder with a hot iron, tin both ends to be joined and hold them together whilst you apply heat from the iron. If you're no good at soldering, I think that silver loaded adhesives are available which may do the job. Once the link is fitted and tested, use strips of insulation tape, cut with a sharp knife, to make sure the link can't short out on any adjacent metal parts. I used to solder surface mount devices that size, damn things would always get picked up by the surface tension on the solder. The trick is infrared red reflow soldering, basically some powdered solder with plenty of flux in it, pre-heat, thermal soak, then reflow with the surface tension lowering allowing formation of the joints, then cool it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azogar Posted February 7, 2011 Author Share Posted February 7, 2011 Thanks for the replies I think i will do some dummy runs first with the iron to get the practise That silver loaded adhesive sounds interesting too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ken_ichikawa Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 I used to solder surface mount devices that size, damn things would always get picked up by the surface tension on the solder. The trick is infrared red reflow soldering, basically some powdered solder with plenty of flux in it, pre-heat, thermal soak, then reflow with the surface tension lowering allowing formation of the joints, then cool it. Get rid of the flux though as flux corrodes wires ironically! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnlyMe Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 Just solder in a new length of cable from the switch to wherever the other end of the connection is? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
athe Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 Thanks for the replies I think i will do some dummy runs first with the iron to get the practise That silver loaded adhesive sounds interesting too The silver loaded adhesive is not very good. Get a piece of thin cable and strip out some of the strands of wire. Cat 5 network cable has about the thinnest easily available. Tin them (apply heat to one end and solder to the other until a thin layer of solder flows along the wire). If you have a very sharp soldering iron tip it will help. Tin the power cable wires. Use alligator clips to hold the strands of wire next to one side of the power cable wire, then apply just enough heat of the tinned solder layers to merge. Put some thin heatshrink insulation (available at Maplins for instance) over the joint and push it up out of the way. Repeat the soldering for the other side. Move the heat shrink into position. If you can't get heatshrink small enough use varnish. It's entirely possible to solder at these sizes and smaller. In the picture below the paper clip is about a mm in diameter. The zif cable wires are less. Each is bridge by a single strand of cat 5. Done by hand under a microscope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AteMoose Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 The only option is soldering, 1mm is HUGE wire (1/10th of a cm) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Number79 Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 I would make sure that you use some older solder, the new stuff with lead removed is mostly tin and is a pain in the backside. Apart from needing a higher temp to melt it also creates tin whiskers which is why lead was added in the first place and is something that you definitely dont want growing in a laptop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Masked Tulip Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 I worked with a C++ guy about 12 years back and he joked one day that most of the CPU power on a Windows PC when a file is downloading goes into the little graphic off the yellow folder moving from one drive to another. Wrong thread but I can't be fecked moving it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scunnered Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 Wrong thread but I can't be fecked moving it. That's the spirit!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichB Posted February 8, 2011 Share Posted February 8, 2011 Lol, now the other thread makes sense. If you do solder this, it might be worth double checking you have the battery out and unplugged first... and maybe try to get a heatsink somewhere close by to not melt the rest of it all off... Have you explored to see if you can unplug the wire at all? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azogar Posted February 8, 2011 Author Share Posted February 8, 2011 Lol, now the other thread makes sense. If you do solder this, it might be worth double checking you have the battery out and unplugged first... and maybe try to get a heatsink somewhere close by to not melt the rest of it all off... Have you explored to see if you can unplug the wire at all? lol - i should add this pc has nothing to do with the other thread! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
athe Posted February 8, 2011 Share Posted February 8, 2011 I would make sure that you use some older solder, the new stuff with lead removed is mostly tin and is a pain in the backside. Apart from needing a higher temp to melt it also creates tin whiskers which is why lead was added in the first place and is something that you definitely dont want growing in a laptop. Damn right the new stuff is a bugger to use even with a decent variable temperature iron. I grabbed several spools of the leaded stuff before it went out of stock in our stores. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichB Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 Just going slightly OT - anyone been to Clas Ohlson or whatever it's called? Seems to be a woollies/ikea replacement/sub - anyway, they have a quite odd range of stuff - including what looks like a suprisingly broad range of soldering supplies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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