fixing a 1784-PCM4 cable

[becs 0]

Last week an electrician accidently broke pcmk connector on our 1784-PCM4 cable. As I went through our cables to see if we had a replacement I found another 1784-PCM4 cable.....with another broken connector. I ordered a 1747-UIC converter as a replacement, but it seems a shame that I have two useless (and expensive!) cables just sitting here. I thought if I could just find a couple PCM connector ends I could repair them, but I'm not having much luck on the internet. Any one else ever repair these cables themselves?

[Mike Lamond 1]

I just looked at our 1784-PCM5/A cable. If you peel off the plastic sheets that are glued to the PCMK connector, you'll see that it's made by AMP. I didn't look through the AMP catalogs to find a match, but it's probably a standard type for PCMCIA cards. Since your plugs are already broken, see if they come apart enough to look at the crimp/solder connections to the pins. That said, consider the expected remaining life of any laptop with PCMCIA slots. Where I work, none of our newer laptops have these slots and the older systems (4+ years) are failing one by one. You're probably better off switching to USB now instead falling victim to the Critical Need DetectorTM.