Need a favour! Pics of soldering LANC in Grip

C

CinematicFanatic

Active member
As the title really.

The LANC remote wire is broken on the FS700 grip. I need to replace the wire, or I have to buy a whole new grip from Sony for approx £200. I have read that replacing the wire is fairly easy to do if you have soldering abilities.

Can any one kindly show some pictures of how they did it ? I'm an absolute noob at soldering.
 
It is probably pretty easy to solder back together if you are experienced at soldering. It should be obvious once you expose the contacts.

But it would probably be almost impossible to do as a first solder experience.

My advice is to take it to someone who has a lot of experience soldering. Maybe you have a friend who has this kind of skill.

It is easy to learn, there are lots of videos on the WEB about how to solder. If you want to learn. But start with simple soldering. Learn how to use flux and a solder sucker, some jobs are best done with a hot air gun. You need a good gun with a small pencil tip and probably low temp solder for a job like this. Like I said it is not that hard but there is a learning curve, you can easily ruin a circuit board by over heating or being sloppy with too much solder. There are lots of tricks like pre tinning.

Good luck with the project. If you decide to try yourself, and practice until you are confident soldering similar size pieces, before tackling the actual job. It takes a steady hand and the right tools.
 
Thanks for the reply.

Well I opened it up to have a look.

There is a red, white & black wire on the switch that connects to the record button (or should I say the circuit board for the record button).

I cut the broken 2.5mm jack which revealed a red & white wire and then some wire wrapped around the red & white (which I am assuming is the black / ground wire at the circuit board end).

Just ordered a pencil tip solder and lead.

And going to watch a lot of youtube vids now to see the tips you mention! thanks.
 
See images above.

I have cut the 2.5mm jack wire and revealed a RED, WHITE & BLACK wire that connects to the record switch.

Is it just a case of buying any replacement 2.5mm jack / remote wire and matching the colours up to have it workng again?

Not sure why I would need to solder? surely just crimping the wires together would do the job then? or am I missing something ...
 
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Well if all you have to do is reconnect wires then it is much easier than soldering to a circuit board.

If you are replacing the entire cable with the jack at the end, make sure you match the TRS tips (Tip Ring Sleve) the 3 parts of the jack. This can be done with a continuity tester or an Ohm meter.

If I am just joining wires I solder them and then shrink wrap with heat shrink tube, Put the tube on before soldering. Just crimping is marginal at best. Soldering is solid.

And the most important part is to provide good strain relief, I use hot melt glue for this or a proper strain relief that clamps the cable.

I had not seen the inside of the handle yet, like I said this makes the job very easy as soldering 2 cables together is very easy. Definitely use the heat shrink tube as well.

Let us know how it works out...
 
Will keep everyone posted. Going to attempt this on Tuesday, hopefully all works out well. Otherwise i'm stuffed and will need to cough out silly money for a replacement with no fault of my own! I purchased my FS700 like this but only discovered that the 2.5mm jack was broken 3 months down the line ... how? you may be wondering. Well when I had my FS100 I never used the Grip, it was always used on a Monopod and the FS700 simply replaced it! ... only now did it occur to me to do some handheld shooting as i've purchased 2 image stabilized lenses, only to my horror to discover that the 2.5mm jack was broken on the grip!
 
Oh by the way, how do I actually make sure I match the TRS tips? What do you mean by that. I thought I just match the colours on the wire, make sure it has a solid connection and thats it? thanks in advance.
 
If I wanted to buy another Sony grip as a spair where can one get one? As I swear Sony claim they are over £400
 
CinematicFanatic said:
Oh by the way, how do I actually make sure I match the TRS tips? What do you mean by that. I thought I just match the colours on the wire, make sure it has a solid connection and thats it? thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

So Olof is referring to identifying what each wire is connected to (tip, ring, or sleeve). Your new 2.5mm lead may not have the same colored wires, or even colored wires at all. So you'll want to use a multimeter to identify which wires correspond to which piece of the 2.5mm plug.

Here are some photo examples... I'm using a DC plug with a battery plate, but the same principles apply.

Photo May 11, 6 22 22 PM.jpg
Here, I turned on the multimeter to the little "sound" icon in the resistance mode of my multimeter. Basically, this makes the multimeter beep whenever you've touched two pieces that are connected.

Photo May 11, 6 12 19 PM.jpgPhoto May 11, 6 21 51 PM.jpg
So I put one of my test leads into the inside of the DC plug. Now, I can touch the two metal pieces on the battery plate. When I touch the one marked "-", I hear nothing. But when I touch "+", the multimeter buzzes. So now I know that the inside of the DC plug is positive, and the outside of the plug is the negative.

So when you are testing your plug, touch one lead to the tip of the 2.5mm plug, then one by one, touch the colored wires. When one beeps, write down the color+tip. continue for the ring and sleeve on the 2.5mm plug. When you're done, you'll know exactly where those red/white/black wires connect on the 2.5mm plug. This way, you're not just trying to do electronics-by-numbers, you could actually re-wire the handgrip using any color of wires and be confident you're making the right connections. In this situation not wiring correctly will just result in the grip not sending a signal but when you are working with power, you always want to check your connections before hooking anything up!

EDIT: Sorry for the sideways photos... DVXuser apparently ignored the photo orientation and won't let me change it.
 
Thanks for explaining! will give it a go tomorrow when the bits arrive via post.

P.S. Might sound daft to experienced users. But should I connect up the three wires with the three on the new 2.5mm remote lead leaving the three connections exposed for me to put the multimeter on? Then attach a tester lead to the tip of the 2.5mm jack and the other tester lead on one of the colored wires waiting for a beep? (provided my multimeter in the house has a beep function - will have to look!).
 
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You want to make sure the Tip/Ring/Sleeve are connected to the same terminal or wire in the handle. Do this by testing the original cable first with a continuity tester taking notes as to what is connected to what.

The trick is that in order to test properly you have to disconnect the wire from the handle, so current is not passed through the circuits in the handle. So note what is connected to what then cut the wire and test.

Then solder back the new cable with the same connections to the TRS. Cable coloring is not always the same.

I hope this helps.
 
Many thanks for replies everyone. Saved myself £200-400 (well what ever Sony charge for a replacement Grip!)

If anything, I think my new grip is much improved. I ran a 3.5mm Jack and purchased a 2.5mm jack with a female end .... why? so if it ever breaks again it's a simple 99p replacement off ebay. The wire has also been kept long if I ever need to attach the grip to an external rig of some sort.

See pictures below ... and I hope this thread helps any one else with a broken 2.5mm jack on their FS700!!

P.S. before any one starts laughing at my work bench ... it's our ironing board ! lol she won't be too pleased with the burn marks I left from the soldering iron.

IMG_20140513_112527_798.jpg


Soldered, Heat shrink wrapped, and then glue gunned in to position for a tidy finish.

IMG_20140513_113224_229.jpg

IMG_20140513_114423_104.jpg
 
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Hey CinematicFanatic have you got a link to the extension for the end of the jack? I just had the same thing happen to me. I called Sony and they sent me a new handgrip free of charge today :) Would like to safeguard the new one though like you have done. Cheers
 
Hi mate, it's 99p on ebay. Don't have the exact link but ANY generic. Just type in "2.5mm jack to 3.5mm" in ebay and "3.5mm male to 3.5mm female"

I can't believe they sent you a free one? was yours under warranty or?

My FS700 was purchased pre-owned.
 
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Thanks man, going to grab one off ebay now.

I've had mine since it came out so over two years now I think. No idea what is included in the warranty but I guess this was covered....
 
the same happened to me yesterday... a friend helped me soldering this coiled cable to the grip, so this shouldn't happen again anytime soon :)
image.jpg
 
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