My TV hangs on the wall - there is a tube in the wall where the video component cables (3 rgb analog) run go from behind the TV to a AV cabinet. Without going into detail, these cables are stuck in tube, and cannot be pulled out.
Last week while rearranging my av equipment, I disconnected component video cables from my AV system. Unfortunately I accidently pulled the coupling connector right off the "B"lue cable. I tried shoving the connector back on the cable, but the TV is getting no blue signal. So I pulled the connector off the cable again.
So now I have 3 component video cables stuck in a tube, and one of them is missing it’s component connector.
No problem, I thought. I’ll just get whatever tool I need to put a new connector on the end of this broken cable and it will be good as new.
HOWEVER…
Before I ventured to the store, I thought I would make sure the cable was still good. So, I stuck the "R"ed and "G"reen cable into my DVD player, and then touched the "B"lue raw cable end to the inside (and outside) of the “B” connection point on my DVD player… No blue signal. Not even a little flicker of blue in and out. Just nothing. So now, I am starting to think this is more messed up that I previously thought. So, my qustion is…
Is it reasonable to expect a video component cable to send some video singnal if the connector comes off and is shoved back on? How about when the connection end missing? Should it be able to transmit (at least poorly) some video signal?
I’m hoping somone will say it’s very possible that a) pulling the connector off may have damaged the connector, so it is no good, and b) these cables really need the full metal to metal contact a connector provides to tranmit the signal - touching bare wire really isnt enough.
Otherwise, It sounds like I might need to an AV installer…
Unless the cable set is quite long, replacing it is likely cheaper than a service call. Without seeing what happened, I’ll venture a WAG that the three RCA male connectors jammed in the tube, yet if you gently start one folded over, follow with another, and finally the third, they will fit, assuming the raw cable wasn’t passed through the tube and the connectors were field installed.
Just shoving the connector back on doesn’t guarantee bupkis. Unless the signal and ground are both made good and aren’t shorted, nothing usable will be received.
Actually, the are pretty long (about 14 feet)
Because of how the cables are binded up in the tube, and a previous attempt to pull them out and replace them with a single HDMI Cable was unsuccessful - replacing the cables themselves might actually close to impossible.
The 3 male connectore on the TV end are not jammed btw - they are firmly attached to the back of the tv.
Ah! By what you are saying, jamming the connector on may not work. Just touching the raw wire isnt enough either (I need the ground connection). That would explain why that didn’t work.
Ok now I am feeling like just replacing the connector with a new, properly attached one should do the trick. Likely?
And it’s really pretty unlikely that pulling on it actually damaged the cable inside the wall. The problem is almost certainly with the connector at the end. By the way, spend the buck or two to get a new connector, and throw away the old one. (You might have to cut off the frayed bit of the end of the cable and then put the connector on. Which might make this cable a bit shorter than the others. That shouldn’t be a problem.)
The tube must have been installed in the wall and the cables pulled in when TV and the AV unit were. If they put the cables in then I could surely replace them with new cables. Maybe two cables first w/connectors then the third last.
Unless an AV installer did something a bit oddball like run RG6 for the component lines, the cable’s probably not going to be coax and the connectors won’t be crimp-ons. Component cables have “RCA” plugs which, as a field replacement item, would need to be soldered on.
Ideally, the three cables in a component connection would be exactly the same length, but in a 14’ run, if one’s an inch shorter, it won’t be a significant difference.
If it’s only blue that’s missing from the OP’s TV, it’s not a typical component connection, but RGB video, (and probably sync on green) which isn’t used very much anymore. For the same three cables, Y-Pb-Pr component (which is what’s put out by DVD players) offers better quality.
If your earlier intent to replace the component cables with a single HDMI failed because of the plugs, why not just clip off the plugs at one end and pull the cable free? Or is it because the HDMI plug won’t fit into the conduit?
Because as I said before, the cables are stuck in the tube. They are NOT stuck because the connectors at either end are too large. Snipping off the ends would leave me with 3 connectorless cables that I still cannot pull through the tubes.
these are Y-Pb-Pr component cables, btw. I often call them RGB component cables bucause to me, thats what they seem to be 1 cable for red, one for blue, and one for green.
Replacing the cables is what I am hoping to avoid - again the cables themselves are stuck in the tube.
Why are they stuck? the tube itself is not a straight shot, it has a turn or two in it. The cables appear to be binded up somewhere in the tube. I have tried with all my strength to pull them through, but they are stuck fast in the tube - replacing them might require busting into the wall.
When I pulled the connector off accidently, I wanted to try and confirm to myself that only the connector was busted and not the cable itself. I did this by first shoving the connector back on, and then later touching the raw wire to the blue input on my dvd player. In both instances I did not get a blue signal.
However, it appears that this method of ‘testing’ may have been flawed, which is what I was trying to confirm by posting here.
You cracked either the ground or center connector. Touching the cable tip didn’t work because you need both video and video ground to make the signal pass down the cable.
Any competent local t.v. repair or home installer will, for a small fee, crimp on a new connector. Alternately as has been mentioned, get a new harness.
Why would RG6 for component lines be “oddball”, and what makes you think proper component cable isn’t coax? Proper component cable is absolutely coax (75 Ohm, meaning RG6, RG59, etc, as opposed to 50 Ohm RG58 and similar commonly used for wireless antennae and the like). The RCA connectors terminating the RG6 or RG59 may or may not be crimps, but that’s hardly the issue. It’s simple enough to terminate with a regular crimp F-connector and then use an F-RCA adapter.
It’s quite unlikely that the cables themselves would need to be replaced, unless you’ve managed in your tugging on them to cut through them on a sharp-edged conduit or something. Testing of the line can be done using a multimeter to check for continuity. If you want to test by touching the bare wire directly to the input, what you need to do is put the centre wire into the jack, and then push the shielding against the outside of the jack (in the way that the ring on an RCA connector grabs the outside of the jack). You must make certain that no fray wire from the shielding is shorting to the centre conductor. It would also be tricky to tell if the centre conductor was making contact with the inside of the jack, since the centre pin on an RCA plug is larger diameter than the centre conductor of your wire. Really the easiest way to tell if putting a new end on will fix your problem is to put a new end on.
I blam insufficient caffeination for that. When I said coax, I was thinking of the stiff stuff used by cable TV installers, rather than the relatively limp stuff that’s used in cables that you’d buy at Circuit City/Best Buy, etc.
Crimp-on RCA connectors for RG6 or RG59 cable never did seem to enter the home market. I saw them in a catalog all of once, and they needed a special* crimp tool that crimped just the very tip of the pin, in addition to the regular “barrel” crimp. So, RCAs are usually soldered on, or as you mentioned, “F” to “RCA” adaptors can be used.
Not really special - it was the same tool that was used to crimp the center pin of a BNC connector, but it wasn’t anything you’d be likely to find at Radio Shack, and priced out of the casual DIY-er’s range. They (the crimp-on BNC’s) were fiddly little buggers to install, to boot!
Back to the cables in the wall. It sounds like someone stuffed three RG6 cables into 1/2" or maybe 3/4" PVC conduit. They’ll fit, but just barely, and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone used a little dish soap as pulling lube. It was slippery then, but now that it’s dried, it’s more like glue.
Even if bigger conduit was used, there might be a “pull elbow” in there, rather than a swept bend - it’s a hard 90 degree turn even with 1" conduit, and all but guaranteed to be impossible to pull through. (They’re meant to have wire pulled to and from them, rather than smoothly through.)
It’s probably best to ignore the component cables and the conduit and scheme another way to get the HDMI cable to the TV. You can probably drop a cable in-wall from behind the TV to baseboard level. Pull off the baseboard and you can then cut a slot out of the plasterboard for the cable to fit into and run it along to wherever the equipment is and replace the baseboard.