In Practice

摘要

Q: I have bought a kit that requires me to put connectors onto ribbon cable. How do I do that? A: It's quite easy. Ribbon cable connectors let you terminate a large number of wires in a single operation, in a far smaller space than you could achieve by hand soldering. All you have to do is carry out that single operation correctly. Ribbon connectors use the insulation displacement (IDC) technique. As shown in Figure 1, each wire is pressed into a forked blade that is precisely dimensioned to cut through the insulation on both sides of the wire, and to squeeze the wire hard without damaging it. To give the most compact layout possible, the forked blades are usually staggered in two rows, one row contacting the odd-numbered wires in the ribbon while letting the even-numbered wires pass through to the second row of contacts. Because the blade applies its squeezing force to a very small area on each side of the wire, the contact pressure at the microscopic scale is high enough to create a cold weld between the two metal surfaces.