A winter's worth of use has seen the cable on the light bit become frayed and loose at the plug end and I'm wondering what best to do. Doubt I'm the only person this has happened to.

I've got a soldering iron but not much of an idea how to use it. I bought a new connector from Maplin which seems to fit (although not quite as tightly as the original) so figured I'd cut the cable, strip back the outer a bit, solder the wires to the connector and screw the cover back in place.

Two questions though – firstly, will this work? And if so, which wire connects to which terminal on the connector? There's one connector sticks up about 10mm and seems to be on the outer edge of the plug, and one that's smaller and seems to be more on the inside. (Sorry, I know next to nothing about electronics, have no picture and that's about the best I can describe it!) There's nothing I can see on the new connector itself to indicate which is which.

The alternative idea I had was to use solderless connectors, but what size or type do I need? I can see 2.1mm and 2.5mm ones on the Maplin site, but not sure what the difference is. If I was doing this, would I need to replace all three connectors (light, battery and charger) to be sure of it working?

Any help gratefully received, cheers!

Do you really need to break the existing connection?
The outer casing of the cable has separated from the connector on one of mine too.
Rather than re-make it, I was planning to reinforce the existing connection by adding an outer "flex-protector" in the form of a coat of silicone over the area. Plan was to form a loose mould from tape and injecting silicone down that.
Haven't tried it yet though.

Small bit is for the center, big bit for the outer on your replacement. Connect it up and ideally heatshrink some sleeve over the plug and wire to stress relieve the soldered joints a bit. I'd do it this way rather than replace the battery and charger ones, just increasing the chances of getting it wrong or making a bad joint somewher.

Haven't got mine to hand but if you have a multimeter, set it to 20V and measure the battery – the result will be +ve 7.4ish v or -ve 7.4ish volts so should show you which bit does what. Someone will be along to tell you the polarity in a mo anyway 🙂

Yup, the actual metal wire core is exposed and fraying.

brassneck – which wire connects to which bit of connector? This is what I don't know. I have a black wire and a red wire and the big and small bits on the connector like you say, but don't know which wire to connect to which connector bit. Always worried that I'll wreck something by just pressing them together and finding out! Good tip on the heatshrink, cheers.