cable question

S

Solafide

New member
When I first got into recording I made a bunch of cables from canare cable and neutrik ends. My soldering job was less than spectacular. The solder melted into the wire and surounding contact point, instead of a "mound" to cover the connection point.

What I am woundering is, how serious is this?

If it is somthing that will affect the quality of the signal, can I add more solder, or would I be better off to get new ends and start fresh?
 
It's not so bad to have the solder running into the wire, maybe even better (dunno)

But be gentle with the solder. Best way to do this:

- Heat up the cable end with the iron for a few secs then add a LITTLE solder just to make the cable end solid.
- Head up the connector end-point for a few secs, add the cable end to the heating process and add a little solder when the cable end is going to melt.
- As soon as the solder surround both contact point (connector and cable) remove the heating iron
- wait until the solder get's solid
-voila

remember never to overburn or over use the solder

My guess is that you still can use your current cables, or do they make funny noise or anything?
 
You really don't want a "mound" of solder - you're looking for a very thin coating.
Use roman's suggestions, but ensure the surfaces are clean before you start by using isopropyl alcohol to clean them. A toothbrush works well.
For those new to soldering - flux works well, but when the joints are cool, clean them well with alcohol.

To de-solder the joints, use a "solder sucker" or wicking tape (kind of a copper braid), then clean, and begin again. Most likely you haven't damaged the connectors.
Cheers,
Mike
 
Thanks for the replies,

Roman,
No there is no hiss, etc. I can't say there is anything wrong with them, but then again I thought the Radio Shack cables were fine until I made my own and heard the difference (no hiss).




here is what I did right

- Heat up the cable end with the iron for a few secs then add a LITTLE solder just to make the cable end solid.
- Head up the connector end-point for a few secs, add the cable end to the heating process and add a little solder when the cable end is going to melt.
- wait until the solder get's solid
-voila



here is what I didn't do right

- ensure the surfaces are clean before you start by using isopropyl alcohol to clean them. (I just wiped with a clean cloth)

- when the joints are cool, clean them well with alcohol.

- I think I might have had the solder to hot because it just melted into the wire and connected it to the mettal. To look at the joints, the wire just looks silver (from the solder) and there is a little pool of solder around the connections. When I look at proffesionally made cables the solder seems to cover the wire so you see solder and not wire at the connection point.


The connections are very solid, and I have yet to have problems as far as that goes, I am just conerned if I could be loosing quality of signal because of the mistakes listed above.

If my mistakes only effect the longjevity of the cable I can live with that, but if I am loosing signal quality, I will redo them.

any opinions on this?
 
If they're solid, and you get no crackles when the cable is flexed, I'd say you've done all right !

No worries regarding signal loss.

mike
 
that's right. Don't worry too much.

If they (still) sound better (less noise) than other cables you used, then you should be fine.

Cables do come in different flavours and qualities, unless you have a huge budget you should do fine with your current cables.

Oh, by the way; very good audio cable is UTP (or better STP) which is ordinairy 'computer-network' cable. It's solid copper so not very flexibel, but not expensive either. So it can be used for permanent signal paths. (I've used it to wire up the my whole headphone monitor mix cabling)

ro
 
Solafide said:
When I first got into recording I made a bunch of cables from canare cable and neutrik ends. My soldering job was less than spectacular. The solder melted into the wire and surounding contact point, instead of a "mound" to cover the connection point.

What I am woundering is, how serious is this?
Click to expand...


It's supposed to do that... It's the 'mound' that is bad. If it does not 'melt into' the cable and contact, you don't have a proper contact at all.
 
Thanks for your replies teknomike, roman and regebro,


I guess I just got comparing my soldering job to my mic cables that I had purchased pre-made, and they all had a mound of solder over the whole connection point, so I thought I might have done something wrong. Thanks again for your comments. It gives me peace of mind and saves me time and money.



roman,
If I am following you, you use cat 5 network cable for your audio wiring. What would be the quality compared to audio cableing. The reason I ask, in the next few months I am going to be putting in permanent wiring between my listening room and my recording room (about 20 feet of cable). This would be to plug my mic cables into. So you are saying I could run 3 cat 5 network cables to accomplish this?
 
solafide,

hmm.. atleast for line-level signals it's great. For mic's I think it does too.

The most common conductor for fixed applications is Solid.
Conductors can be made more flexible by increasing the number of strands, but this also increas the capacitator value of the cable which is bad.
Low capacitance=good
(Capacitance: A measure, expressed in picofarads per foot, of the material’s ability to store electrical energy)

When using shielded cables you get much better/cleaner signals (less cross-talk, better energy flow etc)

You could also get into some good multi-cables from Mogami, Fastline or any of those. These are greatly shielded wires, but much more expensive than cat5 or cat6.

Maybe some one else with much more technical background about cabling could advise here a bit more?!

If you are installing permanent cabling you might consider going for solid copper, like utp. I know I'm gonna check this out some more ....

ro
 
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