For my dell latitude 5430, I got a replacement palm rest with an NFC module since it was a “well I can’t not grab that” price.
Unfortunately, looks like there’s a reason for the price, it was fucked from the get-go. A closer look at the images in the listing, show that the cable was indeed broken even prior to sending, though they may not have noticed. I certainly didn’t suspect anything until I had already taken my laptop apart. Unfortunately this isn’t something I could repair myself unless there’s some kind of breakout cable with easily to solder wires.
I’ll be sending this back soon, but one question I have is what is the part/product name for this kind of connector/cable? I’ve not seen this style before, is this just a dell thing, or is it a more widely used connector now?
The connector is a flip up style, and the flat flex cable has tabs on the side. This particular cable has 6 pins, and is about 3.5mm, or 4.9mm with the tabs.
Have you checked the 6 digit part number of the reader itself? Might be underneath the 3d barcode, on the same sticker (iirc, there are a chain of numbers, with 2 digits, -hyphen, then 6 digit part number)
The ribbon cable may not be replaceable, might be a reader+cable jobby. (May be hard wired to the reader?)
Soldering wires between the two broken ends should make it work, but would be a little janky, and as the cable is so flat, might not be much space for anything other than a ribbon cable.
Worse than that, some parts are not changeable, and one may need a whole front panel palm rest with integrated trackpad and reader… Which would come with an intact ribbon cable..
Unfortunately ribbon cables tend to come in two varieties; standard and proprietary.
This looks like one of the proprietary ones. You would have to ask Dell about a replacement. Even then, it is possible the only source is a similar donor system.
Right to repair is truly only something that pirates and scammers need…
Yeah, theoretically I do believe I could come up with a solution.
In practice, I’ve already filed a return. This is more of a learning exercise since these types of ultra-small connectors are becoming quite common in electronics and I’d like to know what on earth I’m looking at.
What I’ve found so far
FFC: Flat Flex(ible) Cable.
FPC: Flat Printed Circuits/Cables for custom needs. These are the ones that have those awful fragile push connectors attached like you see in phone batteries, or they can be an entire stand alone device.
I want to call these Ribbon cables as well, but that seems to be more specific to actual gauged wire in a ribbon.
Remarkably, it seems that most connectors and cables are compatible with each other if the pitch and pin count are the same.
It seems that tabs that help lock these in place come in two forms
A thickened cover with an adhesive backing that’s attached on the end of a normal FFC/FPC, or something more complicated and more thoroughly bonded as seen in my photos.
Or as seen on wider cables the sides are punched out.
The NFC module (which is actually glued to the chassis) appears to be an FPC. One end is meant for soldering, the other is mean to connect to a 6 pin .5mm pitch flip connector, though the cable itself only uses 3 pin for data/power. Two pins also seem to be connected, not sure if that’s important or irrelevant to the design.
If it wasn’t a laptop, I might consider messing with something like this to allow for converting the soldiered end into a connector.
This is what my recent searches with random variations of “ribbon flex flat cable connectors tabbed locking flip cunts” must have sounded like: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9WhHY-YDZhQ
