I am assuming you are referring to the ethernet cable (cat. 5)
If that is to much of a pain get a firewire cable, cut the casing off and use the internal wire.
As far as a soldering iron goes, just take the tip and file it down until you get the right size, don't forget to re-tin the tip after filing.

Well, I haven't tried the cat. 5 idea yet, but I was referring to the ribbon cable, as it is near to impossible, as far as I can tell, to reliably splice the ribbon cable to get a good connection.

Great idea with the filing down of the tip, hadn't thought of that.

Post edited by: tjh, at: 2004/12/19 10:38

If your piggybacking the new wire to the connector you don't have to "splice" into the ribbon cable

What the ribbon cable allows is to have wires come from one board to another in a very narrow passage. If your mod will not have a narrow passage, just take wires from one board to the other. Remove the ribbon cable if you can. If your mod still requires a narrow space, then work with it, but if not go with straight wire, and no splicing required.

It should not be too hard, and I would suggest getting a 'solder sucker' that is meant to remove solder. Well, technically it's called a Vacuum Desoldering tool. Kind of looks like a syringe that you point at it and when you hit a button, pulls the hot solder into it. It's like $8 at Radio Shack. It will make removing the cable and ZIF connectors pretty easy. The part number is 64-2098 if you need it.

Don't forget you can always cannibalize a ribbon cable from something elise.
Even if it is a 30 wire ribbon, cut off the ones you don't need, or gang 2 10 together, to make do.