Hello everyone, I am in need of a RADIO flex connector for a WMF-10 I just bought. Tape now works great after belt replacement and servicing the internal switches for play/rew/ffw buttons. Flex connector is missing a chunk on one side about 5mm long and I'd rather get a replacement than attempt a repair. Help anyone? Thanks. Sergio.
Hello & we had a nice short, chat on the cell-phone today as Sergio Called me and he speaks English really well. He is searching for the flat wire that connects the door radio to the main body and or any solution of making this work. Does anybody have any solutions for this issue as I need one of these repaired too.
Do you have a photo of this flex connector? Absolutely ALL Discmans use them for their laser mechanisms, and you can buy a box of broken Discmans from mid-nineties for the price of shipping. As a Discman collector, I have quite a few "parts only" here, will send you flex board (for free, of course) if any fit your specs
It was nice talking to you too, Cassette2go... I still need to make some more research into the material used by manufacturers to make these flex connectors, but I'm almost positive the copper-clad plastic can be had by the sheet and then "etched" like a regular PCB board, in which case, I may take some time later on to create a digital version of the flex circuit, transfer it onto the material and reproduce the thing. If I do that, you'll be the first to know.
Very kind of you to make the offer, Jorge. Yes, I have a picture of the flex connector... but I kind of doubt there will be one that matches the design... Of course a small part of a flex connector that resembles the missing part can be cut and adapted, but the flexibility can be seriously compromised if the solder is aplied where the flexing is expected. You can see the missing part on the left (drawn). The flex measures roughly 125mm from side to side, and the missing section is 10mm wide by the exposed copper terminals, (with connections being 1mm apart from each other for a total of 7mm wide, counting all four of them - check pictures of the opposite side, which is a "mirror" image of the missing part, please) I'll try to get my hands on the raw materials and reproduce the circuit, if that proves to be too difficult, I'll adapt as you suggest and get back to you. Thanks man!
This is the correct material for these flex connectors, making them is just like making a regular PCB board. https://www.ebay.com/itm/PYRALUX-Ka...285099?hash=item2a8e8dd0ab:g:iesAAOSwHpdZw6sC
Making some progress today: Scanned the connector, fixed the missing part (digitally) and traced the tracks on top. Will buy the material later on. It will not be the exact same layout, but same electrical function.
Now I can see what it looks like, two alternative ideas Connect the required points together with thin flexible wire. The sort of thing used for earphones springs to mind. The main reason companies like PCBs and flexi PCBs is that it saves assembly time and errors. Get a PCB company to etch one for you. https://uk.beta-layout.com/pcb/pcb-types/info_pcbpool_flex.html I have no idea what they would charge or what their service is like. Good luck in your fixing
Thanks... These companies sure do a more professional job than what I can ever come up with, but I guess the charges for creating the digital version of the PCB alone (so called "gerber" file) are around one hundred bucks, once you have that file, the cost per ribbon must be in the cents to a few dollars, the most, depending on quantity ordered. I could download a PCB design application and learn how to use it and create the gerber file myself, but I'm afraid the learning curve is at least some ten hours (or more), I don't think I want to go that route, especially since I only neeed one of these. If anyone in the group already knows how to digitalize the circuit and cand send the file to me, I can get the copper clad flex material, etch it and mail a few ribbons in exchange. At this point I'm in the middle of some other DIY proyects that demand a lot of time from me, can't afford sitting to learn the software for a long time and/or the cost of having them made for me. Maybe if this was a very common problem, I'd look into making a group buy or something of that sort. Cheers man!! ☺
