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.)
Try it.
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