4 ms·

While not directly comparable, the flexible flat cables in flip phones took years to be 'good' enough to last the phone's lifetime and those moved as much as th

by consp 8y ago

While not directly comparable, the flexible flat cables in flip phones took years to be 'good' enough to last the phone's lifetime and those moved as much as this thing is going to. This might just be a cause of early production models and early adopter problems and might work out later. Note: the flex cables are not bad per se as they are also used in cubesats for instance.

baybal2 8y ago
> the flexible flat cables in flip phones took years to be 'good' enough to last the phone's lifetime Early flip phones used high spec slip rings instead of flex cables. It's a shame that the industry making those high spec micro slip rings went away with flip phone era. Only when phones reached the point of being a disposable commodity, they switched to less reliable direct cabling.
Reason077 8y ago
There is currently a widely reported issue with display backlight failures in MacBook Pros, apparently caused by a failure-prone flex cable which can’t be replaced: https://ifixit.org/blog/12903/ https://ifixit.org/blog/12903/
- rasz 8y ago
  Its a non material dependent design defect, cable is too short.
  - penagwin 8y ago
    I mean we could argue that a different material would solve the problem too, although yeah just making it longer also solves the problem and makes more sense.
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Flex cable used for the mainboard-to-screen connection in Nintendo's DS was a major failure point. It was very tricky to replace (for me); but that did make for many cheap devices that just needed a small repair.
sleepybrett 8y ago
Also flex cables are generally have .. i don't know what they are called 'slide sockets' on both ends, and cost pennies. Therefore designed to be repaired. Not much you can do when you flex your screen in half except replace one of the most expensive parts of your phone.

4 ms·

While not directly comparable, the flexible flat cables in flip phones took years to be 'good' enough to last the phone's lifetime and those moved as much as th

by consp 8y ago

baybal2 8y ago
> the flexible flat cables in flip phones took years to be 'good' enough to last the phone's lifetime Early flip phones used high spec slip rings instead of flex cables. It's a shame that the industry making those high spec micro slip rings went away with flip phone era. Only when phones reached the point of being a disposable commodity, they switched to less reliable direct cabling.
Reason077 8y ago
There is currently a widely reported issue with display backlight failures in MacBook Pros, apparently caused by a failure-prone flex cable which can’t be replaced: https://ifixit.org/blog/12903/ https://ifixit.org/blog/12903/
- rasz 8y ago
  Its a non material dependent design defect, cable is too short.
  - penagwin 8y ago
    I mean we could argue that a different material would solve the problem too, although yeah just making it longer also solves the problem and makes more sense.
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Flex cable used for the mainboard-to-screen connection in Nintendo's DS was a major failure point. It was very tricky to replace (for me); but that did make for many cheap devices that just needed a small repair.
sleepybrett 8y ago
Also flex cables are generally have .. i don't know what they are called 'slide sockets' on both ends, and cost pennies. Therefore designed to be repaired. Not much you can do when you flex your screen in half except replace one of the most expensive parts of your phone.