Bending thin ribbon cable

I'd try to bend it in the place you wanted and make a loop then heat it with a hair dryer on the edge of the loop and see how soft it gets.

an

on

thick

ribbon,

I don't think hair drier is high enough temp.

One thing I did notice, luckily, is that the bend is always on the side where the fine conductors are, not on ground side, so forcing the ground side to stretch , not the conductors, compressing them if anything.

Used a 300 degree C soldering iron barrel, no damage/ melting to the phenolic and took it in 3 stages, heat bend 1/3 way and repeated twice until a tight radius bend giving about 1/16 inch gap. Just did freehand in the end, no 1/16 inch wide edge. At 300 deg there was still a fair amount of resistance to bending, hence 3 attacks. Permanent bend and no breakage in the 0.1mm conductors

-- Diverse Devices, Southampton, England electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on

Maybe my hair dryer is too hot? I can burn tissue with it (not to ignition) if held close to the barrel. I also have a heat gun that I use to shrink tubing if there is a lot of it to shrink as in making a