Help!! Broken SPC900 cable.

[Baz Pearce]

H All,

Does anybody have a dead philips spc880/900? I need a new cable as mine has been damaged beyond repair.

Baz.

[MattGoo]

How's it been damaged / what is the issue?

Is it not possible to utilise any standard usb cable as a replacement?

[Jim Smith]

I have a couple of SPC900s.  I can't test that that they work though because I have WIndows 8.1 and it does not recognise these devices when I plug them in.  You are welcome to them for the cost of postage.

[ErOR]

I use a W8.1 tablet for imaging with a SPC900 just fine, recognises them fine.

How is the cable damaged? You should able to repair it without much issues as long as you're comfortable with a soldering iron.

[ChrisLX200]

I use a W8.1 tablet for imaging with a SPC900 just fine, recognises them fine.

How is the cable damaged? You should able to repair it without much issues as long as you're comfortable with a soldering iron.

Some of these have moulded plugs and if the wires break just where they enter the plug they are a devil to repair - there's nothing to solder to.

ChrisH

[ErOR]

Take the webcam apart and desolder the wires from the board it self. Cut off the part of the wire that's bad so you have good wire to work with and solder it back onto the board.

This would be the cleanest way to fixing it.

[Jim Smith]

I use a W8.1 tablet for imaging with a SPC900 just fine, recognises them fine.

How is the cable damaged? You should able to repair it without much issues as long as you're comfortable with a soldering iron.

I never tried them on my Windows 8.1 tablet! It was my desktop they didn't work with. 

[JamesF]

My recollection is that the cable has a plug on the end that goes into a socket on one of the PCBs.  It's a fairly standard design plug, so it should be possible to shorten the cable and put a new plug on, or even use a new USB cable of a suitable length and put the plug on the end of that.

James

[JamesF]

There are some pictures of the plug in the photos on this page (first one I found on google): http://nightskyinfocus.com/equipment/philips-spc900nc00-webcam-for-astrophotography/

James

[JamesF]

In fact, this picture from my Xbox Live camera disassembly suggests the plugs are the same:

which might mean you could buy an Xbox Live cam for probably less than £5, take it apart for the cable and put the cable back into the SPC900.  Not sure about removal of bit of plastic the cable passes through, but that surely has to be possible (or I'd bet pretty much any other cheap webcam would be similar).

James