4 ms·

A deserved "Well done" to the author, a good end to a tricky job. I wonder if it is possible to solder the two halves of a flex circuit directly together? That

by somat 4y ago

A deserved "Well done" to the author, a good end to a tricky job. I wonder if it is possible to solder the two halves of a flex circuit directly together? That is, is it possible without the junction wires? Scrape the top of one, the bottom of the other, apply solder pads to both sides then align the two and reflow the solder.

megous 4y ago
That's how these are sometimes soldered to the PC board. Eg. https://pine64.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/PinePhone-USB-C-Board-1-1.jpg https://pine64.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/PinePhone-USB-...
myself248 4y ago
Theoretically yes, but it's harder to control the heat for the duration you need to do that. The flex substrate is pretty melty. I would try it with a shovel tip and a whole lot of spares to get the technique down, but if I only had one shot, I think I'd go with the author's technique, one wire at a time. Perhaps with less gap between the ends, though.
- neuralRiot 4y ago
  I’ve done this many times and in smaller ribbons with narrower traces, this is a FPCB the substrate is kapton and it should whitstand soldering temps pretty well the trickiest ones are FFCs (the white ones)
  - myself248 4y ago
    Oh good call, yes most of my experience is with the white ones. Clearly I need to tinker more! :)
  - jgrahamc 4y ago
    Ah. Good to know. I actually attempted something like that before this particular fix and it didn't go well. Hence I "gave up" and did it the "hard" way by hand.
- jgrahamc 4y ago
  The gap was to make up for the amount of ribbon I'd damaged along the way. I didn't want to shorten it too much!