I have two pairs of Thrustmaster MFDs, which I was using so far on my desk propped on their little stands.

Over the week-end I decided to mount them on the surface of a secondary LCD screen I had on hand.

So yesterday evening I put the LCD flat on my desk, disassemble the MFDs' stand and proceed to stick them onto the LCD with double-sided tape. To do so I have to rearrange the wiring to have more leeway. Now all the wires and cables around the computer are threaded into those plastic flexible tubings that you can buy in audio-video shops, to tidy up your wiring. I just can't reach the lower part of the LCD with the lenght of wires available, so using cissors I carefully cut the plastic tubing housing the 2 MFDs' cables a bit along its length, "liberating" some more length of cable out of the restrictive tubing so I can position the MFDs as I want them on the LCD. There is now about 5 inches of unused plastic tubing, so I cut off the unused part of tubing with the cissors.

Very happy with the result, i decide to turn on the LEDs on the MFDs to see the effect (I usually keep the LEDs off). To my dismay, the two lower MFDs refuse to activate their LEDs. Frustated, as they were working fine the night before, I unplug and replug them. I reboot my system. No effect. I load TARGET to check them: no effect. I check the Windows controlers applet, and they do no appear in it...

I am totally stumped. How could both devices fail at the same time??? And I did nothing but glue them on an LCD screen ?!?

Oh...

Wait a minute...

With a sick feeling I check the plastic tubing I have just cut with the cissors: when I had originally stuffed the cables into the tubing I had forced a few loops of cable in to make them fit...

And when I cut that length of "empty" tubing with the cissors, there where loops of the MFDs' cables still in it...

I JUST CUT THE USB CABLES OF THE 2 MFDS !!!!!!!!!

Just like that... With cissors...

Noticed nothing while cutting the plastic tubing.  


So today I called the Canadian offices of Thrustmaster. After hearing that story, the TM customer service person said: "well I certainly never heard that one before". 

I cringed. I feel for you buddy. Out of curiosity, are there a tonne of wires in those cables? If there were only a few, I'd be trying to solder them together.

Wizard

Yeah, splice them back together?

I see five distinct wires inside, each with its own distinctly colored insulating sheath.

Unfortunately I know nothing about soldering, but if it's only a few wires per cable maybe splicing them as ArgonV proposed (by twisting them together?) would work.

I assume those are "standard" USB cables and that the inside wiring is standard ?



BTW, to compound the problem, I mentioned the cables were looped inside the plastic tubing, he?, which means that each cable is cut at two places.......

Since the cables are distinctly marked you're home free. You just need to strip the ends to expose the wire, twist them together, and wrap the wire with insulation tape. It'd be better to solder the wires but so long as you haven't scrimped on the length you've stripped and twisted you should be ok.

Of course, you have the opportunity to extend the wires if you like.

I hate it when I do that.

I'd strip back, carefully, about 2" of the jacket on each side of the cut, and leave the wires that are intact that way, and strip off the insulation of the cut wires a 1/4" each and solder those suckers together with a good smooth solder joint - the wires must be held together and twisted if you can - don't accept a cloudy solder joint. You will need some thin-width insulating tape to wrap around the solder joints. Then wrap each cable up with standard electrical tape and stretch it as you wind it around.


What's even worse is soldering on a connector and forgetting to slip on the housing and cable strain first.


WC

Ouch! However, seems like it'll be easier to repair this rather than send it back for replacement.

Look at it as a chance for you to learn a new skill

Yeah I keep a positive attitude about it.

I mean, instead of "my cables in my house", it could have been "my fingers in a machine shop"....

Well, seems like I will be doing some surgery myself after all. :-)

Got an e-mail from Hercules tech support :





Got to go buy some wire strippers.

Just go buy a roll of solder, some shrink wrap (or at least electrical tape) and a cigarette lighter (a small butane torch can work well too but with tiny wires a cigarette lighter works just fine if you don't want to invest in a soldering iron). Less than $10 should set you up real nice! Also make sure you stagger the wires so that they don't all take up the same space. This will help keep the wiring from being too thick and also reduce the chance of them rubbing against each other.

+1
Hmm, never soldered with a cigarette lighter before.


Another tip - solder the *same color* wires together

If you dread soldering, you can always use telecom connectors.

Here's what they look like.

They are bigger than a well soldered wire, but they are easy to use. Slip the matching wires into the connector. Pinch with a plier. And voila! A foolproof solution for you.

Oh BTW, if they are still too long and you need to bunch them up some more remember to cut a bit more off now before you repair them!

I have to admit I cringed,lol. It is very easy to resplice the cables if they are color coded. Good luck.



Bullet

Thanks all for the great tips !




@ metalnwood - I loled