Great set of videos, but 100% agree with Sean Pearce below, in trying to cut the cable, I used a twisting motion and the pins popped out completely. Turns out they're just moulded into plastic and have fine copper wires around them. Applying heat to a pin which is just held in moulded plastic isn't a recipe for success. Full diaphragm unit for me too and is what I'd recommend.
First of all, thanks for yet another great video. I was ready to recycle my lens, but can now repair it and make a gift of my old 20D with lens to one of my kids. I had the same problem when trying to cut the flex cable. When trying to cut the cable ribbon by placing the blade under it, one of the pins broke away from the coil wire underneath. I was already communicating with an online auctioneer to purchase a new cable who told me that ideally you should use a lower solder iron temperature - max 240C to avoid damaging the diaphragm assembly. When it became evident that I now need the complete power diaphragm and flex assembly I asked if he could supply that instead. He then gave me a great tip - but unfortunately too late: It is actually not necessary to de solder or remove the entire flex cable. You trim as much of it back as you can, cut the small part of the ribbon between the 4 pins in a square and the 4 pins in line. Then place the replacement flex cable over the top of the old part remaining. The protruding pins are long enough to solder. I haven't of course tried this but looking at the remaining flex cable, it should be perfectly feasible. I hope that might save a few pennies....
So - it turns out where I took a short cut (because I had a solder sucker) was not to cut the flex-cable before de-soldering... It turns out that is more crucial than expected, because despite looking like I'd removed all of the solder, when I started easing the flex cable up from the 4 in-line points, all but one pin released... and because, then suddenly the last (one of the middle pins), "popped" off... BUT it turns out there was still a tiny bit of solder attached - and the "pin" had come up with it... Those little pins are presumably connected to mighty fine wires internally... :( So now - I have gone to the (added) expense of buying a replacement diaphragm unit instead... Slapped wrists, if I'd taken more time and care, and split the cables like you showed, that would not have happened.
Great set of videos, but 100% agree with Sean Pearce below, in trying to cut the cable, I used a twisting motion and the pins popped out completely. Turns out they're just moulded into plastic and have fine copper wires around them. Applying heat to a pin which is just held in moulded plastic isn't a recipe for success. Full diaphragm unit for me too and is what I'd recommend.
First of all, thanks for yet another great video. I was ready to recycle my lens, but can now repair it and make a gift of my old 20D with lens to one of my kids.
I had the same problem when trying to cut the flex cable. When trying to cut the cable ribbon by placing the blade under it, one of the pins broke away from the coil wire underneath. I was already communicating with an online auctioneer to purchase a new cable who told me that ideally you should use a lower solder iron temperature - max 240C to avoid damaging the diaphragm assembly. When it became evident that I now need the complete power diaphragm and flex assembly I asked if he could supply that instead. He then gave me a great tip - but unfortunately too late:
It is actually not necessary to de solder or remove the entire flex cable. You trim as much of it back as you can, cut the small part of the ribbon between the 4 pins in a square and the 4 pins in line. Then place the replacement flex cable over the top of the old part remaining. The protruding pins are long enough to solder.
I haven't of course tried this but looking at the remaining flex cable, it should be perfectly feasible.
I hope that might save a few pennies....
I had a few lenses which had the original flex cable underneath the new one, but I prefer to remove the old one, and do a clean soldering.
Anyway, the aperture unit with the new cable is quite cheap, as I remember, I bought it for around 15 USD.
So - it turns out where I took a short cut (because I had a solder sucker) was not to cut the flex-cable before de-soldering...
It turns out that is more crucial than expected, because despite looking like I'd removed all of the solder, when I started easing the flex cable up from the 4 in-line points, all but one pin released... and because, then suddenly the last (one of the middle pins), "popped" off... BUT it turns out there was still a tiny bit of solder attached - and the "pin" had come up with it... Those little pins are presumably connected to mighty fine wires internally... :(
So now - I have gone to the (added) expense of buying a replacement diaphragm unit instead... Slapped wrists, if I'd taken more time and care, and split the cables like you showed, that would not have happened.
I made the same mistake... I cut and remove the flex since.
@@CamerasLensesEtc It would be good to explain *why* that step is done (otherwise there is risk of damaging the very fragile pins) :-)
same thing for me ... grrr , the autofocus dosen t work anymore, i think to buy a full unit ...