Is it possible to make a ribbon cable tester with only passives?

[latigid on]

Solid-state cable tester?



Pretty simple really, counters and drivers with good cables indicating a diagonal line. Bad cables have dark LEDs, LEDs lit off-axis (short circuit), offsets, or inverted from the other corners.

https://www.midiphy.com/en/shop-details/177/84/midiphy-wirescanner-pcb-midiphy-wirescanner-idc-micromatch-ribbon-cable-diagnostics

[cdev]

Yes, if you also have some electricity, you can use passive LCD (thermal sensing) material.

Cables with continuity will heat up, those without wont.

I need  (want) to make a ribbon cable tester for 16 pin IDC ribbon cables....

they are super  expensive and the only affordable one i found is for 40 pin cables. That is fine but not what i need.
https://riddledtv.com/arcade/images/40pin_Cable_Tester_800.jpg

Would it be possible to make with only some LEDs, a few resistors and some pin headers to connect the ribbon cables to? and some buttons or switches to activate it?


I saw this too but it looks a lot more complicated.
https://www.gadgetronicx.com/idc-ribbon-cable-tester-circuit/

[vk6zgo]

You could use a multimeter and have a big series loop with a different value resistors at each node, & just measure the total resistance.

But, but, that isn't complex enough for this forum!

[perieanuo]

hi,
simpliest, just send 5V voltage on some wire  and at the other end do a global short, back on input side put leds+resistors. if by hazard the 5V wire is bad reverse the cable.
simple is good.
of course if you want testing the current capability, add on each wire some charge
like others are saying, with an arduino you can make a smarter test in 11-2 hours using the gpib's and some buffer transistors or scrapped uln/udn chip (it takes half an hour to make the sw and maybe a hour to solder the board between arduino and cable).I suggest you test continuity AND current capability on each track.
I used to manufacture in one company a machine with 10-way ribbon cable, never had an issue with them (the testing was done after the ribbon was assembled inside and we tested the machine for minimum 8h, so it was no need to check the ribbon before). never had a ribbon dead and the machine was a laser alignement system for radio-therapy. the ribbon was of course chinese fab (ordered usually by 1000 pcs). I guess you're concerned with no reason or your app is military-one !?
regards,pierre