Members BigG Posted October 30, 2005 Members Share Posted October 30, 2005 Can someone point me in the right direction for making my own cables... maybe a tutorial website or something along those lines. I've already started but wouldn't mind some tips as I'm finding it a bit hit and miss. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members B. Adams Posted October 30, 2005 Members Share Posted October 30, 2005 Well, what kind of problems are you having, and maybe we can help. I'm sure there's some webpage about it somewhere, but I don't know where... So, what issues are you having? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BigG Posted October 30, 2005 Author Members Share Posted October 30, 2005 I had success with my first cable. With the second I didn't. I tested it with a multimeter and found that current was passing from tip to sleeve... strange. Yet there were no connections that I had made between the tip and sleeve. Of course there was also current flowing from tip to tip and sleeve to sleeve. Let me know if you think of anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BillESC Posted October 30, 2005 Members Share Posted October 30, 2005 You might have reversed a wire or there is a short in the cable. Where did you get the components and what brands are they? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members The Real MC Posted October 30, 2005 Members Share Posted October 30, 2005 There are a lot of crap cables being sold today. 90% of the ones I find have the center conductor with plastic insulators These are terrible for homemade cables because your soldering iron melts the plastic insulator when you're trying to put the plug on. Then the center conductor either has shorted to or has a low impedance short to the shield. Look for cables with rubber of teflon insulators if you're rolling your own. And if you're using them on stage get steel or nickel stranded wire, if you have to use copper don't use copper wire smaller than 22 ga, any smaller and they'll break. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted October 30, 2005 Share Posted October 30, 2005 Originally posted by The Real MC Look for cables with rubber of teflon insulators if you're rolling your own. And if you're using them on stage get steel or nickel stranded wire, if you have to use copper don't use copper wire smaller than 22 ga, any smaller and they'll break. Really? Good grief, you've gotta be kidding, right? Let me offer this: Resistivity of materials in nano-ohms per meter: silver 14.71 copper 15.80 gold 20.11 aluminum 25.00 zinc 54.55 iron 87.10 (steel is a little higher in resistance)lead 193.00 mercury 983.96 Another table: Conductivity of various metals at 20 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Old Steve Posted October 31, 2005 Members Share Posted October 31, 2005 Originally posted by Audiopile Pigwire with 3 row barb wire on steel posts and cedar? Nice Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted October 31, 2005 Members Share Posted October 31, 2005 I don't know where you got your info but it's pretty darned wrong: The vast majority of signal cable is 22AWG and smaller... It's all anealed copper with various platings to insure compatability with the insulation system. For example, teflon insulation requires a silver alloy plating on the wire as it's reactive to copper and nickel. Steel and iron have no purpose in signal OR power connectors. Rubber (natural) is not an insulation that is used anymore, primarily because it's unstable and is difficult to pass any safety inspections in reasonable jacket thicknesses. Teflon as a dielectric is not common nor beneficial for audio signal cables. It's also quite expensive and it's primary uses are in locations where flameproof is a requirement like airplanes. It's also used for very high frequency applications as a dielectric rather than just an insulator. It is a pain to work with if you don't have the right tools. I work with it quite a bit, but not for audio reasons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members The Real MC Posted October 31, 2005 Members Share Posted October 31, 2005 Kevlar, not teflon - sorry. I use Canare L-2B2AT for fixed rack wiring. Want the stage cable I've been using onstage for the last fifteen years without a single failure? I buy USA-2 cable from Unicorn Electronics. 22ga copper center conductors with rubber insulation. I have cables made from Columbia instrument cable that has steel conductors. They are almost 25 years old and have never failed. Yes resistance per foot is a consideration, I use steel conductor for short cables. They are super rugged for stage use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted October 31, 2005 Share Posted October 31, 2005 Originally posted by The Real MC Kevlar, not teflon - sorry. I use Canare L-2B2AT for fixed rack wiring. 'cept that's 25 ga. wire. I thought you recommended 22ga. or larger? Originally posted by The Real MC Want the stage cable I've been using onstage for the last fifteen years without a single failure? I buy USA-2 cable from Unicorn Electronics. 22ga copper center conductors with rubber insulation. According to your supplied link, the USA-2 cable's "rubber insulation" is EPDM (Ethylene Propylene Diene Monomer), which is a synthetic. Originally posted by The Real MC I have cables made from Columbia instrument cable that has steel conductors. They are almost 25 years old and have never failed. Yes resistance per foot is a consideration, I use steel conductor for short cables. They are super rugged for stage use. I don't doubt they're rugged... so's logging cable. I'd like to bench and field test some of these steel Columbia instrument cables and read up on them. Do you have a source for this Columbia instrument cable, or a website? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted October 31, 2005 Members Share Posted October 31, 2005 Unless it's some really goof-ball dielectric junction wire or something mis-labeled, it's very very unlikely that it's steel. I checked the spec's of the top 3 cable suppliers in the country and none of them offer steel wire for electrical purposes. There are 4 good reasons that come to mind... 1. Steel has a very high liklihood of fatigue failure 2. Steel will rust if it becomes damp, especially at the ends 3. Resistivity is too high to be of any use... ground will not be solidly referenced. 4. Steel has terrible solderability properties. It must be soldered with an acid based flux using special solders and higher temperatures for any kind of reliable joint. It also creates a dielectric junction between it and anything a connector is likely to be made of. Think of the pot shell grounds in electric guitars. Most of those joints to the steel housing are terrible, Steel wire is used in power transmission applications as a reinforcing conductor for aluminum assemblies in high voltage long-span transmission lines. That's about the only electrical use of steel wire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Steve_B Posted October 31, 2005 Members Share Posted October 31, 2005 Coming back to the original question Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members The Real MC Posted October 31, 2005 Members Share Posted October 31, 2005 Originally posted by Audiopile 'cept that's 25 ga. wire. I thought you recommended 22ga. or larger? I use the Canare for fixed installations, like racks. My original post said 22ga or bigger for STAGE use. According to your supplied link, the USA-2 cable's "rubber insulation" is EPDM (Ethylene Propylene Diene Monomer), which is a synthetic. And it endures a hot soldering iron and coils/handles like rubber cables. Good enough for me. I'd like to bench and field test some of these steel Columbia instrument cables and read up on them. Do you have a source for this Columbia instrument cable, or a website? Been looking, no luck (I'd like to buy more if I could find it). Like I said, I bought it 25 years ago. There's no marking on the cable, and the store told me of the source. It's more likely the center conductor is an alloy and not steel - can't tell from looking at the cable. It certainly isn't copper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ear Abuser Posted October 31, 2005 Members Share Posted October 31, 2005 It's more likely the center conductor is an alloy and not steel - can't tell from looking at the cable. It certainly isn't copper. I'm guessing it's tinned copper Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted October 31, 2005 Members Share Posted October 31, 2005 I can guarantee that it's not steel... I'll bet it's tinned or plated copper also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bluescout Posted October 31, 2005 Members Share Posted October 31, 2005 On your bad home made cable, cut off one end and check it. If it's OK, it's the other end. Cut off the other end and check it. If it's OK it's the cable. That stuff happens to me occasionally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Scodiddly Posted October 31, 2005 Members Share Posted October 31, 2005 Biggest newbie soldering mistakes: 1. Not spending the time to prepare the wire ends. Do a nice job stripping, definitely tin the ends, and trim as needed.2. Leaving the soldering iron on the connection for too long. Ironically this is most often caused by too cool an iron. With a nice hot tip the solder melts quickly and you can make the connection fast . With a cool iron you have to leave the tip touching much longer, resulting in heating and melting of plastic insulation around the wire and in the connector. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted November 1, 2005 Share Posted November 1, 2005 ok, a few more tips (seems like this might be covered in the archives): 1) For beginners, I suggest starting with spiral shield cable (if assembling signal cable). This is usually easier to deal with than braided shield cable. Well assembled spiral shield cords are generally better than poorly assembled braided cords. If you're soldering 1/4" cord ends on speaker cable, I suggest starting with 16 ga. cable stock. 2) Get a decent soldering iron. I suggest this: http://cgi.ebay.com/Weller-WSD80-Digital-Soldering-Station-With-Iron-Stand_W0QQitemZ7558007395QQcategoryZ109556QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem Keep your solder sponge clean and moisten it just to the point that you can just barely wring water out of it. You want something with a selection of tips and adjustable thermostatically controlled heat. My production solderstations are very similar to this. I solder most wire and cord ends with a temp setting of 700deg F. 3) Use a mildly activated non corrosive 63-37 rosin core solder. I use Kester 66/285 .050". I suggest the .050" stuff for cable work. The thinner stuff (.031") is too thin and cavitates (for lack of a better word) when feeding into the work. Also, the .031" and thinner is too droopy to stay in-place to bring your work to the solder. When tinning wire, it's easier to bring the wire and iron to the solder, than bring the solder and iron to the wire. 4) You gotta learn how to strip wire and how to strip just the right amount of insulation off. Just 1/10" more-or-less can mess you up. For stripping, I just use regular Ideal brand "T Strippers". Oftentimes, stripping with one gauge smaller will work better than stripping with the matched gauge hole, but it takes a fine touch on the stripper to cut the insulation without nicking the filaments of the conductors. 5) There's a bit of a fine art in tinning the conductors and termination points on the cordends with just the right amount of solder. Typically, you want a bit of a convex bump of solder on the cordend termination, and you want to wet the filaments of the conductors enough to fully cover all the filaments. With the conductor and cordend termination tinned just right, then with a chisel point on the soldering iron, just about 2 to 3 seconds is all it takes to make the joint. You'll know it's just right if the finished job is smooth and shiny and you can just make out the filaments of the conductor. It also takes a little practice to learn how to go into the solder joint and how to pull out of your work. You'll need to develop an eye for sizing up which, the conductor or termination point, has the higher thermal mass. Which ever is the higher thermal mass portion gets the heat first then you work the higher thermal mass portion and iron to the lower thermal mass portion. Pull out so you don't leave a tit or smear a thin trail. 6) Shrink tube is your friend (much like chocolate frosting to the baker). When in doubt, shrink tube it. You should have a good variety and supply on-hand when diving into a cord assembly job. If you're a little shaky on the errant filaments with the shield, put a little shrink tube over it after you tinned it, but before you make the termination. 7) If you've overheated your work to the point where the insulation is starting to curl back (or melt) and/or the solder is dissociating... then stop... cut the cable back and start over. A solder job that's going to crap will only get worse. 8) Some sort of a solder jig is a must. I use a rock and a stick: I could go on and on, but I'm getting tired of typing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bluescout Posted November 1, 2005 Members Share Posted November 1, 2005 That's good of you to share some nice advice with us. Some guys in another thread recommended your site and I had a look. My band doesn't move or use our stuff often so is there any reason your inexpensive cables won't do the job for us? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted November 1, 2005 Share Posted November 1, 2005 Originally posted by Bluescout That's good of you to share some nice advice with us. Some guys in another thread recommended your site and I had a look. My band doesn't move or use our stuff often so is there any reason your inexpensive cables won't do the job for us? Well... here's my test platform: http://www.concertprosvcs.com/ We still use a variety of cables aquired before my association with EWI, but the new addition snakes, signal cords, and speaker cords are predominately EWI. I believe there's a few folks on this forum who also use EWI products and hopefully can offer their brutally honest opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Centauri Posted November 1, 2005 Members Share Posted November 1, 2005 Originally posted by BigG I had success with my first cable. With the second I didn't. I tested it with a multimeter and found that current was passing from tip to sleeve... strange. Yet there were no connections that I had made between the tip and sleeve. Sounds like a guitar / patch mono jack cable you are making. A trap I have seen many fall into is the conductive plastic shield used on some single-core cables. Have a CLOSE look at the end of the stripped cable - you may find the inner insulation has an extra quite thin black sheathing around it. This sheathing is conductive and MUST be stripped back before soldering. CheersGraeme Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Barryjam Posted November 1, 2005 Members Share Posted November 1, 2005 I purchased an EWI Sub snake from Mark a couple of years ago. We mix from stage in a corporate and wedding band. So the snake is curled up and put in the bottom of a gator mixer over amp rack case. The fan ends stay connected to my Mixwiz. Not babied at all. About 80-100 gigs later, absolutely no problems. I haven't heard a crackle from it. This is good stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members B. Adams Posted November 1, 2005 Members Share Posted November 1, 2005 I have several snakes, as well as lots of cables made by EWI, and they'll take anything you can throw at them. If you're a large touring company, doing 300 shows a year, you might want to go with something a little heavier, but if you're comparing them to "normal" cables and snakes, like standard Whirlwind, Horizon, etc, they're right on par. For the average working band, I haven't seen a better solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ashivraj Posted November 1, 2005 Members Share Posted November 1, 2005 Being one such EWI user, here's my take on it: - the EWI ends (which look like Neutriks) are quite good, and I'm yet to have one fail on me. - the braid shield cable (which is the only one I've used)... hmmm... solid as steel, but a) the shield is a pain in the behind to work (which isn't a fault of EWI as such, more just a general issue I have with braid shielding), and b) the cable has AWFUL memory. By this I mean that it remembers too well, and holds too well. One small mistake when coiling/uncoiling, and you have to spend a good few minutes making the cable is absolutely straight before coiling it up again. It is particularly painful when you buy a stock cable, because for some reason they come... can't quite describe it... folded. Square-ish. Like the shape you'd see when you elbow wrapped. That takes days and many many coil/uncoil cycles to get rid of the bends. Comparatively, the Van Damme spiral shield stuff (which is pretty much industry standard here in the UK) is a lot easier to work with, but not quite as solid, and won't take as much of a pounding. I believe Belden is industry standard there - can anybody compare the two? Having slated the EWI cables, I'll have to balance it with this: quality-wise, it stands up there with the best of them, and at a fraction of the price. If I could learn to over-under *properly*, this would be a shameless plug for EWI cabling. And still is for the EWI ends. YMMV, AS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BigG Posted November 1, 2005 Author Members Share Posted November 1, 2005 Wow that's a huge amount of info you guys have thrown my way. I'm very gratefull. I gave up with my cable as I think I must have melted or stripped through one of the wires... it was a dodgy old cable anyway. I'm just working on some guitar cables. I'll go and get some better cable and stuff. I've got no idea where to get heat-shrink tubing from though. Any suggestions would be appreciated... thanks once again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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