Side hobby, I love old video game stuff. I sometimes like to repair it for myself and others. But there is a time when it sucks… When you break something. Or something breaks on your watch. The danger of repairing your own vs for someone else is when something breaks… How do you fix something you can’t get parts for? Ribblion cable clamps. You look for simple fixes first. In my case, the ribbon cable crimp clamp disappeared.
Not a problem if it’s your own, but what if you’re doing this for a friend? Or a friend of a friend?
Therein lies the problem. It’s not yours; you’re asked to repair it. Repair it! But disclose all your fixes. So I went to work looking for a solution.
I found a video that used plastic from packaging as a new crimp holder.
Insert a sheet of plastic on top of the cable. Is cumbersum? Yes! Annoying? Absolutely. Did it fix my problem? Yes! As game tech has become newer, this issue continues to be a problem. How does this happen? They aren’t the best connectors; in fact, they can fall off or get lost in transit. They use the pins as holds. And if you flip over your item? Bye bye tab……… Hello? Could I get more cuss words? Please and thank you!
In the end, I made a tab that is bigger on one end. This makes things easier to hold and fold. So the next person can see where I was going and swap or put new tabs back in place.
Long story short, I am never working on this hardware again! Unless it is my own.
Oh, and how many hours did I work on this?? 5 hours 23min. Did I fix it?? Yes, at first, and no… Yes, it works, it is back together… But a new challenger has arrived. As I went deeper into its features to an edge feature. No camera. So I have to open it one more time and reseat another ribbon cable. I will update this post with pictures and end results.