Splicing HDMI Cable?

[Ian]

Has anyone here tried splicing an HDMI cable? From what I've read, this could be a fruitless exercise - however I'm going to give it a try, as the alternative is even worse!

We've got an HDMI cable which is channelled into the wall (not in a conduit, it's fixed in place ) and some of the active circuitry fried when we had a very near miss with lightning. Luckily, it appears as if the active HDMI cable has a booster in the ends of the cable, rather than in the middle (as appears the norm).

Because of this, I've bought what I think looks like the same cable (can't be 100% sure as I didn't install the initial one) and I'm going to try splice both end connectors back on.

I've got an awful feeling that there's a very slim chance it will work, but I'll be careful to minimise disturbing the twisted pairs and shielding and make a neat job of soldering . The alternative would be to pull the old cable out and redecorate which would take days - so as a temporary alternative (until I re-do it next year with conduit in the channel) I'm going to give it a try.

Is there anything I should be aware of to maximise my chances of this working? From what I understand there is a very slim chance of success, but it's probably worth a shot.

I've got a backup plan that may work if this fails, which I've tested on a spare HDMI cable. I used 4 of the twisted wire pairs in the HDMI cable and re-terminated them as a network cable - it works fine as far as I can tell, so I can use an HDMI over CAT5e adaptor as a last resort.

 

[OLIVE2222]

Dear Ian,

Seems possible according to link here under:

http://hdtvpicturequality.blogspot.be/2010/02/how-do-i-repair-broken-hdmi-cable-end.html

looks to be exactly the same issue as yours.

Olivier

 

[(*steve*)]

I've read that you can do 50 feet without an amplifier. How long is the cable in the wall? If less than that you should be fine.

Probably best to have a simple cable in the wall and the amplifier (if you need it) separate. But hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I agree with your backup plan.

 

[Six_Shooter]

This is why I always like just simple cables running through a wall, which is then terminated into a wall plate. The chances of the cable itself needing replacement is slim to none in this scenario.

 

[Ian]

Thanks for the feedback. From reading that link it looks like there may be a chance after all!

My cable is 15m long (49.2125984 feet - so just under the limit, Steve). If I'd done the install myself then I'd probably have done it differently, but hindsight is a wonderful thing as you say! I'm about about keeping it simple and making sure there is a backup, but only as I've learned the hard way all too often!

Olivier, the link that you posted talks about using UR splices. I've got just enough of these to do both cable ends, however I was concerned about the mess it would make (as in I can't neatly cover the work in heat shrink). I'm assuming that a cleanly soldered connection would be no worse in terms of signal degradation?

 

[OLIVE2222]

Yes Ian nice soldering work will be at least as good as UR splices but you need to be fast to avoid insulation melting.
UR splices are probably suggested because they don't need any soldering skills.

Olivier

 

[Ian]

Thanks, I'll give that a whirl