My Macbook Pro (mid-2009) hard drive crashed a few weeks ago. Â Since I had a current Time Machine backup, I figured that it would be super-simple to install a new hard drive and do a restore. Â Well, it wasn’t as simple as I’d hoped.
A friend asked me if I could repair an HDMI cable. The end was broken, and because it was run through the wall in a complicated way when the room was built, it would be very hard to run a new one.
After reading several articles online, I realized that one of the hardest parts of the job would be figuring out the wire coloring – there doesn’t seem to be a standard. The cable was labeled “LWC Digital Media Interconnect E190607-N”. I found this document that got me part of the way, but I had to use an ohmmeter and the broken end to figure out the shielded pairs. At the bottom of this post is the pinout that I confirmed.
My first try was with this solderable connecter kit. But I’m not great with super-detailed soldering, and I couldn’t wrestle the the wires into the correct places and get them soldered without shorting each other out.
There is good advice in this forum discussion, which led me to success with this hdmi field termination kit. Â This solution results in a female hdmi connection, which you then extend to the device with a short (normal) hdmi cable. With this kit, a radio shack project box, and a short hdmi cable, I was able to repair the broken cable!
halfway there
I needed to pry open some heavy duty S-hooks to change out a playground swing. Â There were different suggestions online, but none that seemed like they would work for S-hooks this thick.
Finally I realized that I could hammer a chisel into the gap, and it worked!
Now I just need a better way to close them back up — I held them with a Vise-Grip and hammered on them, but they rotated some and got sharp barbs where the Vise-Grip tore them. Â I had to grind them down with an angle grinder.
We’re pleased with the results of using Instabind to protect the edge of a carpet remnant that we bought for our basement. In addition to the Instabind, I got a Surebonder PRO4000A glue gun, since it could take the long nozzle that Bond Products sells for use with Instabind.
The video below helped in figuring out how to deal with joining the two ends.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqQPMvDtc_s[/youtube]