Modifying The Canon Off Shoe Cord II

The steps below will run through the steps required to modify and Off Shoe Flash Cable so that is can be extended to any length required using PS2 extension cables.

First a PS2 cable is cut in half and the ends stripped as show below. This will allow the 2 plugs to be plugged together or they can be connected using another PS2 extension cable to increase the length of the extension.

To extend the flash cable, the curly cord will be unsoldered from the camera connector and the extension cabled inserted between the curly cable and the camera connector.

To open the camera connector first carefully remove the lable from the top to expose the 3 screws underneath.

now remove the 2 screws from the sides of the connector and the single screw from the underside of the connector. You should now be able to gently pry the 2 halves of the connector appart. Make a note of which screws are use where, they all look similar, but some are slightly different sizes.

Once the connector is open, remove the 3 screws from the top to release the metal bracket inside. There is also a small silver screw inside the connector the holds a plastic plate in place. Remove this as well. Unclip the strain relief grommet from the metal bracket.

Make a drawing of the contacts and note the colours of the wires connecting to these contacts. Now unsolder the wires to disconnect the cable from the connector. Also unsolder the small black wire that connects from the bracket to the main cable. and remove the ferite cube from the cable.

The strain relief grommet is molded onto the cable, but can be removed by carefully inserting a fine jewelers screwdriver between the grommet and the cable and loosening it.

On one end of the PS2 cable, strip back the outer insulation so that the inner cores are exposed to the same length as the curly cable. Strip about 2mm of insulation off the end of each inner wire and tin with solder.

The PS2 cable i used was slightly thinner the the curly cable so the grommet was a loose fit onto the new cable. If this is the case, glue the grommet in place with hot-melt glue.

Fit the ferrite cube onto the new cable as shown below.

Solder the new wires back onto the connector. If the wire colours do not match those in the origional cable, make a note of which wires are connected where so that they can be matched up with the origional wires later.

Solder the small black wire from the bracket back onto the bare screen wire from the new cable.

Clip the grommet back into the bracket and screw the bracket back into the top cover.

Fit the plastic cover plate back and screw it down.

Screw the connector covers back together and refit the the sticker. One half of the cable mod is now complete.

To complete the other connections, you will need 5 pieces of 2mm dia heatshink tubing that are about 12mm long, and a piece of 6mm dia heatshrink that is about 120 to 140mm long. Strip the outer insulation of the other half of the PS2 cable back about 30mm and strip and tin the inner conductors.

Place the 6mm heatshrin over the PS2 cable and slide it back out of the way. Place a piece of 2mm heatshring over each conductor in the curly cable and solder the matching wires together. If there are unused conductors in the PS2 cable, trim the back and out of the way.

Using a heat gun on it's lowest heat setting, shrink the tubing over the connections to insulate them. Take care not to melt the insulation on the wires.

Slide the 6mm heatshrink over the joind wires and shrink that using the heat gun. The modification is now complete.

The extension can now be made as long as required by adding PS2 extension cables between the 2 halves.