The Sinclair QL Forum

I was wondering if, before I start, anyone has any tips for replacing a ribbon cable on an MDV drive please?

I have a fully working MDV (reads/writes/formats), so don't want to lose it, where the lower ribbon cable has partially broken away from the MDV PCB

Putting aside my lack of soldering skills, I'm considering the following approach

a) Cut off ribbon and use iron & solder sucker to clear out the holes
b) De-solder a matching ribbon from a spare not very good MDV
c) Try and solder that ribbon onto the good unit

In my mind it seems fairly straightforward but I wondered if anyone has any tips/thoughts please?

Many thanks

Hi,

I didn't understand very well which part is faulty in your ribbon cable,
But... why not to use a IDC male connector and a ribon cable like the HDD or Floppy?

It would not be so hard to solder, but need time to identify each cable and solder it in the right place.
At the end you will get a much more functional connector.

Another option (I don't like that too much) is to solder the ribbon cable to a round pin row and attach those 2 rows with some shrinks ... I don't remember the name of those that you apply hot air and get shrink and tied. So that way it become a block much easier to manipulate.

For the first option you can see how I do with the MicroDrivePico. Because it goes like a charm and doesn't need to remove the heater when installing or removing.

Thanks Popopo, that’s given me some food for thought