Soldering onto ribbon connector

[Don]

I have a ribbon cable and want to solder a single wire to all the
conductors.

This is a flatter ribbon cable than the sort of cable found in PCs for
for IDE drives. ISTR it may have come from a printer where it was
subject to a lot of movement.

I don't have any ancy equipment. Is it possible to solder onto the metal
in the conductors? Or is that metal made of aluminum or something like
it which is difficult to solder?

 

[Arfa Daily]

I have a ribbon cable and want to solder a single wire to all the
conductors.

This is a flatter ribbon cable than the sort of cable found in PCs for
for IDE drives. ISTR it may have come from a printer where it was
subject to a lot of movement.

I don't have any ancy equipment. Is it possible to solder onto the metal
in the conductors? Or is that metal made of aluminum or something like
it which is difficult to solder?

If you are talking about the white flexiprint type ribbons, you can scrape
the white insulation back from the conductors using something like a blunt
curved scalpel blade, and then solder to the exposed metal. I've done it
many times. However, you need a small iron, you need to be quick, and it is
a good idea to 'stagger' your connections back and forth by a couple of mm
on each alternate conductor, as this helps to eliminate the possibility of
getting solder runs, and hence shorts, between the individual conductors.

Arfa

 

[William Sommerwerck]

The safe answer is hunt down a compatible connector to mate
with it. Someplace like Digikey, Mouser, Newark, Allied
Electronics might have them.

It's called an IDC -- insulation displacement connector.

However, I suspect the OP wants to "short together" all the conductors. At
least, that's what his post suggests. (See above.)

 

[N_Cook]

I have a ribbon cable and want to solder a single wire to all the
conductors.

This is a flatter ribbon cable than the sort of cable found in PCs for
for IDE drives. ISTR it may have come from a printer where it was
subject to a lot of movement.

I don't have any ancy equipment. Is it possible to solder onto the metal
in the conductors? Or is that metal made of aluminum or something like
it which is difficult to solder?

If the wiring form is not RF critical or HV then braid up some insulated
magnet wire and go from actual solder points on pcb to solder points and
ignore the original ribbon connectors and ribbon.

 

[alchazz]

Generally connectivity to those is provided by a PCB-resident connector-
here's an example:

If the ribbon is made of Kapton, you should have no problem soldering to
it. Just keep the soldering time down to one sec or so.

Al