So, the final patent, is the head unit on the FT-857D. This has had a skirmish with a soldering iron before (as had the body)… the 3.5mm socket wore out a few years ago but didn’t have a socket that matched the footprint. Miraculously, one of my PCB-mount switches matched the footprint for the switched-part, so I just grabbed a socket I had laying around and wired that up.
I’ve replaced the wire a couple of times, and the last time I used some stranded cable from a cheap (and I mean the nasty kind) Ethernet cable that only had two copper pairs in it. I thought this would be fine as it was still stranded cable … but no:
So, time to replace that cable. I’ll go for something a bit more flexible and see how that goes. Opening the head unit is easy enough… and the surgery needs to be on that second PCB which is pretty much all passives … it’d be tempting to re-design that board actually, but for now, it stays as-is.
This is what the pad layout looks like, and how it was soldered … yes, I fail at strain relief!
The wire I’m using is ribbon cable… stranded and quite flexible. We’ll see how it goes.
My headset is working properly now. Testing out the keypad, the cable just reaches, but that’s fine, I don’t want it much longer. So the station’s ready for the Yarraman to Wulkuraka ride, and any recreational/commuter riding I might do beforehand.
The project isn’t finished though … the keypad I definitely want to improve on to make something more compact and rugged. The last keypad actually lasted about 6 years, I built it in 2012 soon after I bought the mountain bike, so I really can’t complain, but then again, I didn’t have access to high-quality PCB manufacturing or 3D printing 6 years ago. 