alternatives to stupid lilliput ribbon cable?

viguera · 05-31-2005, 11:00 PM

Has anybody come up with a good working alternative to this stupid thing? Mine is seriously flaky, to the point that vibrations from the car seem to loosen it up from the connector after a while...

I've tried tape and other solutions I've seen here, but quite frankly I don't think anything short of hardwiring the connectors end-to-end -- or some kind of replacement cable that's not as finicky as that POS ribbon -- would work 100%.

Has anybody actually hardwired the connectors and tossed the ribbon cable? I saw a write-up on digitalww, but that was to connect their in-dash case to a regular screen, I'm not sure how much of that I can apply towards my screen modding needs... It LOOKS like I should be able to get one of those long cables from digitalww and split it into individual strands or something, then just go to town with a soldering iron...

Any suggestions/ideas?

Thanks

jcdillin · 06-01-2005, 07:33 AM

I have been searching for a way, because the FFC cable that lilliput uses is close to impossible to find in custom lengths, unless you want to buy 500feet of it.

I have tried soldering very very small gauge wire to the pads of the connector, I had to give up, the spacing is so small it's almost impossible.

Have you tried cleaning the ends of the ribbon with a eraser? that made most of my vibration issues go away.

Shotty · 06-01-2005, 07:40 AM

Check out lumenlab.com store. There is an australian version of the store as well.

I believe they sell short lengths of FCC cable. Don't quote me tho, lol

viguera · 06-01-2005, 10:16 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by jcdillin

I have been searching for a way, because the FFC cable that lilliput uses is close to impossible to find in custom lengths, unless you want to buy 500feet of it.

I have tried soldering very very small gauge wire to the pads of the connector, I had to give up, the spacing is so small it's almost impossible.

Have you tried cleaning the ends of the ribbon with a eraser? that made most of my vibration issues go away.

Well if you find something, let me know... my guess is that the connector itself is ready to go, and once that's done, it's over. I'm not talking about the bracket, but the connector to the PCB (since light pressure seems to fix the issue, but that's a hard thing to do when messing with a touchscreen mounted in a car

). And I know once that comes off, I might as well throw the screen out if I can't find a way to connect both panels.

I was thinking about soldering too, but I saw that you only have like millimeters to work with... some of the pins extend out with traces, so I might see if MAYBE it's possible to hook up some of the pins at the connector and some at the traces elsewhere... or maybe on the backside or something. There's gotta be a way, seeing how flimsy these things seem to be.

viguera · 06-02-2005, 04:45 PM

Well now I'm almost 100% sure it's the connector... I think one (or more) of the pins came off the PCB, and pressure (and tape) hold it down enough until it gets loose again, and whatever pin it is loses contact with its counter-part on the board.

I read about someone re-heating and pushing down on the connector to get the traces + pins back together or something, since soldering the 40 hair-thin cables is basically impossible, so I might try that and see.

It's a shame though... the screen works perfectly otherwise but this is one of those things that you really can't control. And I can't see why they'd use this in the first place... doesn't look like any kind of money-saving thing, since it's obviously hard as hell to put together and ridiculously fragile.

Anyway... I was hoping that there'd be a way to solder the connections end-to-end, but since it's a ton of cables I might as well pray that the re-heating thing works and all the pins make contact... now I guess I need a magnifying glass, a heat gun, a young priest and an old priest...

Altimat · 06-02-2005, 05:28 PM

It may still be the ribbon I'd try that first. The ones Armen sells at DigitalWW are way nicer than the originals.

viguera · 06-02-2005, 05:46 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Altimat

It may still be the ribbon I'd try that first. The ones Armen sells at DigitalWW are way nicer than the originals.

Thanks Mike... I'm obviously ****ed at lilli for their garbage, but at least I know this was an experiment with a crappy screen in case it didn't work... and now that it worked I'm ****ed that it's so hard to work with. I just wanna know the name of the guy that signed off on that 3" POS cable and crappy connectors so I can kick him in the neck.

I ordered the cable from digitalww just now, just to see... my guess is that I'll probably end up getting another screen and mounting it on the ABS plastic that you put back there.

I guess I'll see what happens...

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