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50 Pin IDC Cable Tester


Kaizen

Question

I had to make up a number of 50 Pin IDC (PCB interconnect) cables today and wanted a way to quickly test them for open curcuit and short circuit, I also have a number of used ones I wanted to test as well.

The crimps are staggered so the first one is connected to the bottom row and the next one is connected to the top row so I split the LEDs between each row so that if there is a short between two adjacent cables it'll light one of the LEDs on the opposite side and if there's an open circuit then one LED won't be lit.

A double pole switch powers each bank so it's just a matter of flicking the switch to check each side. Works a treat and didn't take long to knock up.

 

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Sweet bit of engineering. I must admit I'm guilty of just lining them up on the vice and a gentle hammer to close them, ( I can hear you cringing now), and touch wood, they have always worked but I guess one day it won't line up and smoke will result.

 

Nice job. Who doesn't like arrays of LEDs aye.

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Sweet bit of engineering. I must admit I'm guilty of just lining them up on the vice and a gentle hammer to close them, ( I can hear you cringing now), and touch wood, they have always worked but I guess one day it won't line up and smoke will result.

 

Nice job. Who doesn't like arrays of LEDs aye.

 

 

Yeah I just squash them using a vice with a couple of pieces of 16mm MDF as soft jaws to get even compression and not damage the plastic.

In hindsight I could have designed it a bit better with the LEDs spaced further apart so they're not obscured by the cable but I just wanted to knock something up quickly and it does the job.

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Probably not, I thought about using an FPGA or RPi to do something like that but there was no need as this design does everything that's required for checking shorts and open circuits.

 

I'm learning to use Altium Designer at the moment and seeing as it's such a simple circuit I'm considering making a few boards in order to get some experience laying out the PCB side of things.

Is there any interest in something like this?

Would be just a bare PCB you populate yourself.

Edited by Kaizen
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