I have a ribbon cable and want to solder a single wire to all the conductors.
This is a flatter ribbon cable than the sort of cable found in PCs for for IDE drives. ISTR it may have come from a printer where it was subject to a lot of movement.
I don't have any ancy equipment. Is it possible to solder onto the metal in the conductors? Or is that metal made of aluminum or something like it which is difficult to solder?
If you are talking about the white flexiprint type ribbons, you can scrape the white insulation back from the conductors using something like a blunt curved scalpel blade, and then solder to the exposed metal. I've done it many times. However, you need a small iron, you need to be quick, and it is a good idea to 'stagger' your connections back and forth by a couple of mm on each alternate conductor, as this helps to eliminate the possibility of getting solder runs, and hence shorts, between the individual conductors.
Arfa
The safe answer is hunt down a compatible connector to mate with it. Someplace like Digikey, Mouser, Newark, Allied Electronics might have them.
It's called an IDC -- insulation displacement connector.
However, I suspect the OP wants to "short together" all the conductors. At least, that's what his post suggests. (See above.)
I'm not so sure it would be an insulation displacement connector in this case, from the description of it being flatter and that when a cable is subject to a lot of movement it's best to avoid insulation displacement type connectors since they usually either pince or stab the middle of the conductor which can weaken it more when it flexes a lot.
Some of these cables have individual wires sticking out the end of the insulation and the connector is molded with several small holes and a strip that presses down onto it after the wire is inserted, creating a wedged sort of friction fit. Other types have a flat metal conductor a bit like you'd see on a laptop keyboard, though overall the connector isn't so different except it has a slot for the entire thing to slide into and one side of the cable has the contacts exposed, flat contacts.
If the wiring form is not RF critical or HV then braid up some insulated magnet wire and go from actual solder points on pcb to solder points and ignore the original ribbon connectors and ribbon.
-- Diverse Devices, Southampton, England electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on
Try it.
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