HELP! broke cable inside warthog

[bkthunder]

Hello guys, I was disassembling the warthog to grease the gimbal, and while unplugging one of the connectors on the circuit board, a small cable broke off just attached to the white plug.

 

I'm talking about the 5 pin connector that connects the sensor to the circuit board.

Can anyone tell me the size of it, so I can try to find a replacement?

 

Thanks

[hansangb]

You mean the yellow cable? You can find pin extractor/inserter and just fix the cable. Or do you mean it broke off the PCB?

[marluk]

You can fix this.

 

Just take something thin (small screwdriver) and push the safety pin(not sure if the phrase is correct) on the connector of the yellow wire. It is on the other side of the connector on your photo.

You should be able to pull out that pin from the connector. Than reconnect yellow wire with pin and push it back in connector.

 

Pin is small and this is tedious job, but you will end up with this same work even you order new connector anyway.

[MostlyHarmless]

When I bought s broken stick to rebuild I had to replace the 6 wire plug and wires for the joystick grip. They should be the same pin spacing and plug type just the 5 pin instead of the 6 pin. The plug and wire leads were listed on ebay as "Mini. JST 1.25 T-1 6-Pin Connector with Wire x 10 sets". If you are in the US and want to try swapping the pins and wires between a 6 pin a your 5 pin PM me and I can try to mail you one of the 9 plugs and wire sets that I have as spare.

[bkthunder]

Thanks fo the replies.

I already took out the metal pin from the connector, but the problem is that the wire was soldered and I can't remove the remaining wire form the metal pin. So even If I solder it back, I think that it will take too much space and won't fit in the plastic housing.

 

My idea for now is to find a new connector with the cable, cut the cable and make a junction.

 

Can anyone else confirm it is a JST connector? Could it be a Molex maybe?

 

@MostlyHarmless thanks for the offer, unfortunately I'm in Europe...

[mmaruda]

Just put the remaining part of the wire and the metal pin into the connect and solder it together with the yellow wire (take some of the yellow plastic off first so you have anked wire). Put some isolating tape around it afterwards, that's what I did with the broken cables inside the stick (the ones for my TMS switch). It does not have to be pretty, as long as the solder provides contact and does not short with anything else, you should be fine.

 

Edit: Two other options:

- de-solder the wire from the pin and follow Marluk's advice.

- scrape the insulations from the yellow wire, connect the wires and glue them together with super-glue (ghetto but should work)

Edited July 18, 2016 by mmaruda

[hansangb]

you can use desolder braids to suck up the old solder. Then you'll be back in business.

[bkthunder]

So, yesterday night I tried to solder the cable back, but without success.

The small metal connector that goes inside the plastic plug doesn't leave room for error, when I soldered the cable on it, there wasn't enough space for the metal pin to go deep enough, so it kept popping out when trying to connect it to the pcb.

Tried several things but no success.

 

I ordered a JST connector with cable, hopefully that will be the right size. Should be here next week.

Edited July 19, 2016 by bkthunder

[f-18hornet]

I do not know if Thrustmaster still sell spare parts for Warthog but you can ask them for it. Still relatively a cheap solution.

[bkthunder]

I do not know if Thrustmaster still sell spare parts for Warthog but you can ask them for it. Still relatively a cheap solution.

 

 

I sent an email to their customer support 2 days ago. No answer.

[Sokol1_br]

A new cable will require make solder with 2,5mm space in the sensor side, is need skill to do this.

 

JST 4 pin connector with assembled cables:

 

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9916

[bkthunder]

A new cable will require make solder with 2,5mm space in the sensor side, is need skill to do this.

 

JST 4 pin connector with assembled cables:

 

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9916

 

This is what I bought, I think it should work out of the box?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/181834807685?_trksid=p2046732.m570.l6004&_trkparms=gh1g%3DI181834807685.N41.S2.R1.TR1

 

 

P.S. after 3 days still no answer from Thrustmaster...

[marluk]

I think you could fix this without any new items. If you succeed to pull out the pin of yellow wire than the fix is very simple.

 

-cut 2mm of insulation on yellow wire

-solder yellow wire on the pin. You can pull out old wire with tweezers while heating it up with solder. If you can't do that, just soleder the wire on the top of the pin, it should hold on good enough.

-return the pin in the connector

Edited July 21, 2016 by marluk

[bkthunder]

I think you could fix this without any new items. If you succeed to pull out the pin of yellow wire than the fix is very simple.

 

-cut 2mm of insulation on yellow wire

-solder yellow wire on the pin. You can pull out old wire with tweezers while heating it up with solder. If you can't do that, just soleder the wire on the top of the pin, it should hold on good enough.

-return the pin in the connector

 

This is exactly what I did, but there is a problem:

in the female part of the connector (the one on the board) there are 5 pins. These pins have to "slide" inside of the metal pin in the male part, which has a square section. When I soldered the cable on the pin, there was simply not enough space for the female pin to slide deep enough into the connector.

I tried in different ways but I think the metal pin is just wasted. With the heat of the soldered it deformed and it's so small that making it the perfect shape again is impossible, at least with normal tools. It seems that there is no room for error in how these contacts were engineered....

 

I wish they just used some bigger and more common connectors instead of these flimsy small pieces of c*ap....

[Sokol1_br]

Buy the JST connector with wires from Ebay, cut the original cable near the connector.

 

Cut the new cable in appropriated size, remove ~2 cm insulation in both cables, insert appropriated diameter heat shrink tube - length ~2/3 cm - in one size or cables.

 

Twist the wires, apply solder, slide the heat shrink tube above solder, heat. Done. :)

 

In this way avoid make the delicate solder (very close) in sensor PCB.

[marluk]

This is exactly what I did, but there is a problem:

in the female part of the connector (the one on the board) there are 5 pins. These pins have to "slide" inside of the metal pin in the male part, which has a square section. When I soldered the cable on the pin, there was simply not enough space for the female pin to slide deep enough into the connector.

I tried in different ways but I think the metal pin is just wasted. With the heat of the soldered it deformed and it's so small that making it the perfect shape again is impossible, at least with normal tools. It seems that there is no room for error in how these contacts were engineered....

 

I wish they just used some bigger and more common connectors instead of these flimsy small pieces of c*ap....

 

I understand. Few days ago I was assembling even smaller version of that connector on rc plane. It is really PITA.

 

Then I agree with Sokol1, I think it is best to follow his advice and avoid soldering near the board.