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Okay, so this isn't like my first time splicing wires or even USB wires, but I'm getting totally frustrated with this situation. Maybe I need a new perspective because I've been sitting here trying to figure this thing out forever and have gotten too narrow-minded about it.
Anyways, so my dog chewed threw my Orbit AF Webcam. So, I tried to splice it back together. There's 4 wires in a USB, all color coordinated. So, I soldered them together and wrapped them individually with electrical tape. It works sometimes, but 90% of the time, my computer is giving me a USB error still.
Is there anything I'm missing here?
Yes, I have ensured they are all making good contact. I've even resulted to stripping an entire inch, and soldering the entire inch of wire together, for all 4 lines. I've done this so many times, my originally 6 ft cable is now probably about 4 ft lol.
Anyone who has a lot more experience in this know what I'm doing wrong? I've soldered USB wires before, but not that often.
Extra information: In the original wire, the four wires are wrapped in some kind of "foil" which is wrapped by some wire mesh, which I'm assuming to be anti-signal-loss/interference material of some sort. Or am I supposed to be doing something with this too?
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Maybe some of the lines are breaking at locations other than where the dog chewed it through. Like if one cable was pulled after being exposed (say by biting on it), it could have partially torn the wire, like maybe at the termination.
The wrapping can reduce interference, as you mentioned. Also, it's better for the data lines to be twisted around each other all the way down the line (twisted pair), to reduce interference as well. It could be that you're picking up more interference now than before, and that's significant enough to cause problems--but as an uneducated guess, this seems a bit unlikely.
Maybe you should replace the cable entirely, if possible.
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I bought this thing retail for $150, so I didn't want it to just go to waste even though I got another one at 50% off. I guess it's still salvageable since it works with a mini-USB direct to the camera itself. But the camera doesn't have a microphone or can't stand alone without the base. I didn't want to have to rewire a new cable into the base since it's pretty cramped, sticky (Logitech, or whoever made this for Logitech... used A LOT of glue to put the base together), and requires a really steady hand to not solder some points together (they're fairly close).
I guess this is really my only option then I guess, since it's either this or throw it away.
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