Soldering kapton ribbon cables.

Feb 04, 2008 2 Replies

Is there an efficient way to solder wire wrap wires onto kapton ribbon cables? For prototype builds, if the cable is cut in half, damaged etc..



Last time i tried it smelled plastics, kapton wires got many things except soldered :-) Seems wires get dislodged by the soldering iron heat. And the heated kapton material seem to work as an anti-flux agent.


Do you mean flexible PCBs? I use 400 grit sandpaper to expose the copper, then I use flux and a good iron (one that can bring a lot of heat to the joint) with some solder on the tip, and I just let the joint suck what solder it needs of the iron's tip. If you do it quick enough, and with enough (not too much) solder, it's quite simple.

Soldering the flex circuits is probably the only application that the resistive heating ColdHeat soldering iron is good for; it tends to heat the solder and trace, and isn't powerful enough to melt the substrate. Of course a small low power iron tip should work just as well.

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