[de_]

Having done the repair, swapped 2 digital sidecars that had erratic behavior, swapped to a previous year cable (which the DS's worked fine), inspected and re pressed the repair which then failed a pin by pin continuity test, re- did the repair again with an experienced mentor which again failed the test, we believe the posted repair instructions lead to unreliable repairs and potential huge frustrations and or loss of matches, especially for teams without strong mentor support. The problem is the center of the plastic connector bends in the vice as the steel hood bends leading to insufficient pressure on the center to properly penetrate the ribbon cable.

My recommendations are
- find someone who has the proper tool if possible
- UPDATE: as mentioned in a below post, do the fix on the FEMALE end, not the MALE end as per in the instructions. The female end does not have the metal hood to bend. Or do it with the female and male as a unit.
- do a continuity test of all 37 pins no matter what
- if you have a choice, use a previous years cable or a new cable (see Andy Mark or see item 390387142016 on Ebay) if possible no matter what the continuity test says (a weak connection could become intermittent with vibration).
- we ended up putting a piece of thin plywood (or metal) along the full length of the connector between the 2 rows of male pins as a support beam and used the vice against the support beam. There was no bending of the plastic body and so there was consistent penetration of the cable insulation across all 37 pins and immediately all pins passed the continuity test.