Broken Borescope Connector Pin, A Bit Tricky.

[Muttley Snickers]

At the moment on my bench other than my coffee is this Borescope which I bought for the neighbour about 18 months ago, I originally told him to always support the armored cable connector at the monitor whenever he is manipulating the camera, yesterday he came over and said it was not working so now it's on my bench.

Somehow he has managed to break one of the pins in the DIN connector on the armored cable, I have recovered the pin from the monitor socket and will try and drill out by hand the part left in the connector and then lightly sand the pin, add a bit of antimony solder to the tip and with a bit of heat hope for the best.

I can't think of any other way as the connector cannot be dismantled or removed, access is extremely limited so if all else fails then I have already told him there is a good chance that he is up for a replacement which I think is around $45, I have noticed that the connections on these devices does vary somewhat so we would need to find the same configuration type and unfortunately the supplier for this particular unit is extremely expensive for a replacement camera cable.

The pin is 0.610 mm in diameter and I have 4.354 mm in length to play with, I have a large collection of pins but nothing as small as this, the biggest challenge to date has been trying not to lose the broken pin until measurements have been made so we are now safe in that regard, the pin although brass in colour is magnetic so probably coated steel.

Pictures are a bit ordinary so I may decide to update these with some from the other camera, with other things to do I'm in no big hurry to have a crack at this one so any suggestions will be most welcome prior to having an attempt at the repair as we may only get one go at this.

Many Thanks

Muttley

[Ian.M]

Connectors can *ALWAYS* be removed - maybe not non-destructively, but if spare parts can be found (e.g. off an ordinary Mini-DIN-6 plug), splitting the outer metal shell with a Dremel and cutoff wheel, then replacing the whole plug would be an option.  You may be able to bodge the shell back together with epoxy and a wrap of Kevlar roving, or you may end up having to make a new shell, possibly by drilling an aluminium block, turning the plug end to size, and tapping the other end for grub screws to secure the armoured cable jacket.

[Muttley Snickers]

Thanks Ian, I did have a good go at trying to remove it last night but it wouldn't budge, also it does have a grub screw up near the thread and another hole about midway down the connector body which I initially thought was a second grub screw but it now appears to be an entry hole whereby they inject rubber compound for waterproofing, the same applies to the camera head end.

I wouldn't bother turning up one of these shells, the incorporated tongue or keyway itself would take quite a while to setup and do on the mill, I did mention to the neighbour that if I wasn't satisfied with the final repair result then I could use the camera and armored cable in conjunction with a number of 4, 7 and 10 inch monitors that I have, might be handy for something I suppose as I don't have a dedicated Borescope.

Many Thanks.

[tautech]

Muttley, that connector looks very much like a PS2 PC keyboard connector. 

[Muttley Snickers]

Muttley, that connector looks very much like a PS2 PC keyboard connector. 

Yes my dear friend, that is exactly what it is and I confirmed this last night by plugging a USB to PS2 adaptor into the monitor and it fitted, this doesn't help us much though and I have these connectors in the workshop but the bodies or shells are all plastic rubbish.

Also looked at the Radio Parts site where we got the Borescope from originally and once again they have changed their stock to a completely different Borescope model with what appears to be another connector altogether....

[amyk]

Something like this, but with 6 pins?
http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/4-pin-New-Aviation-Plug-Male_60069951290.html

[Muttley Snickers]

Just an update for those waiting with anticipation to see where this ends up, I mounted the damaged connector into one of those adjustable Aldi vises, not the greatest tool ever invented but certainly more than suitable for the task at hand, using a 1.2 mm ball nose burr and rotating it by hand I commenced the process of creating a crater or concave in the remaining part of the connector so that the drill bit would not walk and stay centered, when the pin broke away it left a mound or convex so the burr was without doubt the best tool for the job.

Using a pin vise after the burring process I commenced drilling by hand starting with a 0.500 mm drill bit and worked my way up to 0.600 which is just under the pin diameter of 0.610 mm but I needed to allow and compensate for the spindle run out (a shaky hand), I have just run the burr back in to remove any sharp edges that the drills may have left and created a chamfer around the lip for the solder to pool, using a pair of medical locking forceps I managed to reinsert the original pin back into position, it's a nice snug fit and we have only lost about 1 mm in height so I think once soldered into place we might be ok.

Next step will be soldering the pin back in but as I have been on the coffee all afternoon I might wait a while before any attempt is made, also the plastic case that the borescope came with readily permits the camera cable to be permanently connected to the monitor so if this repair is successful I will notify the neighbour to leave it attached to minimise the risk of any breakage in the future, also realised during this episode that I need to find a camera with a decent macro, the ones at hand are no good for close up stuff.     

[TerraHertz]

Nice work so far, but you know what's going to happen when you try to solder that, right?
The plastic will melt, and the pin base will move out of position.

Incidentally it's the exact same connector as on mine, despite the different model. Maybe they are not
as rare as you'd think? Sorry the connector pic is poor. Hard to judge on the small camera back screen.

Edit: I can't see any "2nd hole" on the casing of mine, so thought I'd see if I could undo it. There's a single grub screw locking the part of the shroud with the alignment tab, maybe it comes off?
But... that grub screw has an allen key size smaller than any allen key I have. Darn it, sorry.

[Muttley Snickers]

I thought I would just give a heads up and an end to my part of the thread, I tried unsuccessfully to reattach the broken pin to the pin base that I had prepared, simply could not get anything to adhere to the base and as TerraHertz pointed out I had to be extremely careful not to cause irreparable damage to surrounding parts, I also tried to replace the pin altogether with the centre core from some RG-59 coax which was around 0.600 mm, I wrapped the core around the soldering iron then tinned it and stuck it into the base but was not satisfied with the way the solder had taken, probably just the flux acting as a glue. 

Anyway I contacted Radio Parts Group again to see if they happened to have a replacement camera hanging around and after about a week or so I got the call to inform us that they did have some old stock and fortunately a replacement cable with the camera. They also indicated that the reason they dropped this series of Borescopes was because of too many returns and I was not the only one to have experienced broken connector pins, it was a common problem with these units.

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation whatsoever with RPG other than being a customer, they have offered to look after us on price for the replacement and were directed to this thread to have a look at where I was at with this thing.