A ribbon cable comprises a plurality of parallel coplanar conductors which are contained in an extruded matrix of insulating material. Such cables are connected to other conductors by means of multi-contact connectors which have contact members spaced apart by the same distances as are the conductors in the cable. The connectors are conventionally installed on the end of the cable by simply positioning the cable in alignment with wire receiving slots in contact terminals in the connector and moving the cable laterally of its plane so that the conductors are inserted into the wire receiving slots in the terminals in the connector.
Ordinarily, the individual conductors in the cable are connected to spaced apart terminals in the connector in a manner such that the positions of the terminals exactly match the positions of the conductors in the cable. The end conductors on each side edge of the cable are connected to the terminals on each side of the connector and the intermediate conductors are connected to terminals which occupy the same positions in the connecter as are occupied by the conductors in the cable.
Under some limited circumstances, it is necessary to invert the positions of some of the conductors in the cable in order to connect predetermined conductors to terminals in the connector which are in positions that do not correspond to the original positions in the conductors in the cable. In other words, it is necessary to have "cross-overs" in the cable for selected conductors. In the past, these crossovers of selected conductors have been achieved by simply slitting the cable along two lines extending inwardly from its end so that the conductors which are to be inverted are isolated from the remaining conductors of the cable and the conductors which are to be inverted are contained in an isolated ribbon which is usually spaced from the side edges of the cable. The isolated group of conductors contained in the ribbon are then twisted through an angle of 180 degrees along the longitudinal axis of the isolated ribbon so that at the end of the cable, the positions of the conductors are inverted if the group of conductors contains an even number of conductors. If the group contains an odd number of conductors, the central conductor in the group will occupy the same position after the twisting operation has been carried out as it occupies in the main portion of the cable.
The operations of slitting and twisting described above are currently being carried out by means of simple cutting tools and by manual manipulation of the cable. The present invention is directed to the achievement of an apparatus which performs the slitting and twisting operations and which simultaneously installs a connector on the cable after the slitting and twisting operations have been carried out.