Well done!

I wish I could do something like that for my recently acquired Toshiba Tecra 550CDT. I was taking the original HDD out, to image it and replace with something more modern (mSATA on a 2.5" IDE adapter) and the FFC was so brittle that it snapped right at the edge of the PCB where it flexes upon lifting the original caddy up:

I'm fairly decent with the soldering iron (although not as steady as I was some 30 years ago!)... but I don't think I would even want to attempt it with as fine a pitch as this connector. And of course the part is completely unobtanium.

edit: Oh, and I do love a trackball on a laptop 😁

megatron-uk wrote on 2024-12-18, 16:49:

Well done!

Thank you, although of course I would have preferred if it hadn’t broken in the first place, but oh well...

megatron-uk wrote on 2024-12-18, 16:49:

I'm fairly decent with the soldering iron (although not as steady as I was some 30 years ago!)... but I don't think I would even want to attempt it with as fine a pitch as this connector. And of course the part is completely unobtanium.

About your FFC:

I wouldn’t try to repair the flat flex cable itself but replace it with thin wires instead. Do you have access to the soldering points of the individual pins on both sides?

If so, that should be possible. Also, sand down the connector area and then measure which pin connects to where. Of course, it’s still going to be a lot of work... otherwise you can sometimes be lucky on ebay. I found an original replacement flat flex cable for my PCD 4ND for 10 Euros on ebay (and bought it just in case, because I do not know, how long my current solution will last.) Just create some "search-notifications" and you can be lucky. (For example: I found a messed up Dell D600 for 5 Euro (but with a working screen, which I needed) and a really messed up IBM Thinkpad 380Z for 1 Euro, but with a working Pentium II 300MHz MMC 1 CPU - I would have needed the flat flex cable for the display, but just the CPU alone made the purchase price worth it. 😀 )

megatron-uk wrote on 2024-12-18, 16:49:

edit: Oh, and I do love a trackball on a laptop 😁

Yes, I’m also surprised at how well the trackball works. I have another Escom laptop with a trackball, but I prefer the key layout of the PCD 4ND. 😉

edit: You can also look for a spare "Toshiba Tecra 530 CDT":

It looks as if the 530CDT and the 550CDT use the same connector. I could imagine that other Toshiba laptops might also use this connector...

nice job on that:) doesnt matter how it looks, important thing is you managed to save it and it works!
if the trackball has the same connector on the other end you could probably find a generic FFC cable to replace it, im guessing it probably doesnt and the cable is part of the main pcb, only option is patching the break with wires or finding a replacement FFC cable and splicing it in either half up the cable or inside the trackball

ive got a problem with a cable for the keyboard on a toshiba 300CDT, and im not sure whether its fixable, a bunch of keys arent working so i checked the cable just above the connector and noticed two black traces inside the cable, it doesnt look like copper inside the cable it looks like that silver material used on keyboard membranes, so dont think i can solder to it, the only other option might be one of those silver paint pens, anyone here ever repaired one of those successfully?

megatron-uk wrote on 2024-12-18, 16:49:

Well done! […]
Show full quote

Well done!

I wish I could do something like that for my recently acquired Toshiba Tecra 550CDT. I was taking the original HDD out, to image it and replace with something more modern (mSATA on a 2.5" IDE adapter) and the FFC was so brittle that it snapped right at the edge of the PCB where it flexes upon lifting the original caddy up:

The attachment img20241217101128.jpg is no longer available

I'm fairly decent with the soldering iron (although not as steady as I was some 30 years ago!)... but I don't think I would even want to attempt it with as fine a pitch as this connector. And of course the part is completely unobtanium.

edit: Oh, and I do love a trackball on a laptop 😁

It is awful fixing those flex cables, I've repaired two of them now and one was less ripped than the other, but both of mine were still in one piece:
Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?
and the later cleaner repair:
Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?
They'll likely break again in future 😒

Making up a new flex cable is somewhere in my big to-do list queue since we know the pinout and I know the connectors it uses: [SOLVED] Toshiba Tecra 550CDT HDD ribbon cable
Would you be interested? I was looking up the costs of a flex pcb and it might be doable if jlc still do cheap flex pcbs.
If it's not cheap though then I'll go with my original idea of making a fixed PCB that would really require a CF card to fit in the space because it's unlikely it would be in the same spot as the original hard drive.

I think the best long term solution would be the T-shaped PCB talked about in the earlier thread; you could still then use either a CF adapter or one of those half length mSATA adapter PCBs.

At the moment I am looking for broken 530 and 550 machines... the other alternative would be the pa2609u selectbay HDD adapter (which from the 550 bios at least appears to be bootable), but it would mean losing floppy or cd support; for me that wouldn't be an issue, but it might be for some.

One further option, and something I cannot check myself (I only have a FDD selectbay module), is whether a broken CDROM selectbay module could be repurposed?

DudeFace wrote on 2024-12-19, 02:10:

nice job on that:) doesnt matter how it looks, important thing is you managed to save it and it works!
if the trackball has the same connector on the other end you could probably find a generic FFC cable to replace it, im guessing it probably doesnt and the cable is part of the main pcb, only option is patching the break with wires or finding a replacement FFC cable and splicing it in either half up the cable or inside the trackball

Thank you. The cable has the same connector on both ends:

I’ve already ordered replacement cables from Aliexpress for just a few euros, though it will take a few weeks for them to arrive. I’m also curious if it might be possible to simply use a generic cable instead.

DudeFace wrote on 2024-12-19, 02:10:

only other option might be one of those silver paint pens, anyone here ever repaired one of those successfully?

That's an interesting option. However, I could imagine that silver paint might crack quickly when it dries. You’d need a type of paint that remains somewhat flexible. I have no idea what paint might work for that. Additionally, it would also need to adhere properly to the specific surface.

Thermalwrong wrote on 2024-12-19, 05:02:

It is awful fixing those flex cables, I've repaired two of them now and one was less ripped than the other, but both of mine wer […]
Show full quote

It is awful fixing those flex cables, I've repaired two of them now and one was less ripped than the other, but both of mine were still in one piece:
Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?
and the later cleaner repair:
Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?
They'll likely break again in future 😒

But it is another way to tackle these kinds of issues. Thank you sharing them.