Cable Building

I've done this before when stripping long lengths of wire: Clamp a small blade in a set of locking pliers so only a tiny bit of the blade is exposed, just deep enough to cut into the sheath without hitting anything underneath. If anything, I veer on the side of caution and cut a teensy bit too shallow, but it's then weak enough that I pull on the wiring and it rips out easily.

 

Errr you are calculating the width if you squished them flat on a plane next to each other... that wouldnt even be close to matching a 2.4mm diameter wire which would be like 10 awg.

 

Hmm ... didn't see those. Assuming ~25awg they're either the same or a bit thinner than the smaller gauge individual strands in the 6-core @yotacowboy and I bought (0.55-0.6mm diam multistrand). I searched the site for "silver" but couldn't find anything else usable, and I thought about asking Mable if he had anything along those lines. But it was hard enough to get in touch with him by email after the Chinese New Year break that, when I did, I just went ahead and ordered (I had to install the Taobao app so I could chat with his employees there to ask him to check his email - couldn't find any Ag wire on his Taobao store btw).

Thanks for the tip. The smallest locking pliers I have on hand are vise-grips, which would be rather awkward to hold. I have reasonable enough control with the craft knife to get almost through, or just through and lightly touching the shield. Haven't seen any cut strands in the shield yet, and I'm not that concerned as I'm not sure what I'd do with it. But I figured I'd save it as Yota said he thinks it's pure Ag as well. Mainly, I just don't want to have a mess of wire shards all over the place (wife hasn't said anything yet, but she will eventually ... - such is apartment living).

 

I got this bulk speaker cable on clearance a few years back... stripping the ends is such a hassle. It's twisted pair in the middle so you can only cut away a bit at a time or get your spiral cutting right, then once youre at the 2 internal conductors the thickness seems inconsistent for that insulation so if you use wirestrippers without being super careful it will cut tons of wire shards from the stranded bits, then you have to separate out 9 solid core wires from each bundle to strip the PE from those (or melt/burn in solder cup I guess?) It takes me an hour to prepare a wire with just the 4 terminations.


Is there a better way to strip it, or just meticulous elbow grease? :/

 

This is the same as stripping most 3 pole power cable. Just take the cable, mark where you want to strip the sheathing, bend the cable to nearly a right angle at the mark, then carefully slice the sheathing with an xacto knife or razor blade to just expose the conductors. It helps to start cutting at a position with the greatest amount of sheathing between the blade and the inner conductors. Also, most polyethylene type dielectrics will start to tear once you put a small cut in them when you bend the cable, which makes things easier.

 

Geez, and I thought I was having a rough time ...

Now you know why it was on clearance

<end shitpost>

 

I wouldn't do this with thick gauges that transfer a lot of current like a power cord, but on smaller stuff with complex construction like that I've cheated by tapping a hot solder blob onto the end. Usually that's enough to cause the insulation to shrink back and tin the ends so I can make my connections.

 

Done



No idea what to do with the shielding.

 

Use it as conductors and do blind comparisons to the silver

 

The shielding appears to be pure silver, too. So, maybe expand it out, shove some cotton rope inside it and then figure out some way to throw another shield/dielectric over top?

 

I'm patient with fiddly stuff, but not that patient

That would make for one big phat headphone cable. I thought about silver ICs, but the rats nest behind my "rack" is very inconveniently located and it would be a total PITA to swap things out.

I have 2x 3m lengths of "silver" shield. I'll send it to anyone who wants to play. PM me.

 

So I finished the cable, as well as a pure silver XLR>TRS adapter for apples2apples comparisons. The 2 white strands mixed in with the clear ones gives it a kind of sparkly pattern that isn't unattractive.

I'd previously converted a 8-wire Norne SPC to nekkid/splitterless for @tommytakis, and quite like the result. So that's how I went with this one. I think nekkid wire is actually quieter than multifilament sleeving over soft clothing, but is definitely louder over zippers and other hard objects.



The clear wires are actually pretty supple and OK to work with, but the white Teflon strands (and the remaining red/green) are pretty stiff with significant memory. If I were to do it again, I'd buy enough so I could make the whole thing using the only clear strands. I was going to make another hybrid cable with the red/green wires, but I'm pretty sure I won't like the way it handles. This 8-strander has 2 strands of white Teflon and it's borderline for me. The original cable is advertised as "Teflon", so I guess the clear wires have Teflon insulator as well. Both clear and white were equally very heat resistant. The Norne DIY wire insulator melts like ice cream on a summer's day.

As I said in my profile, initial impression is that this elcheapo silver cable is like wearing a snazzy sharkskin suit, and the 8-strand Mogami W2514 copper is like being wrapped up in a fleece snuggy. Initial fears that it would be fatiguing have proved unwarranted. I'll do a thorough comparison with my other cables on all my headphones and report back later.

*sorry, didn't realize this photo would end up being so long

I tried to get more info from Mable about these, saying "a friend was interested" and asking him if this is the same silver wire as inside the 6C wire I bought, and if he has it in clear. All I got back was:

For headphone cables, I would say stripping the yellow USB cable to get at the clear strands is the better option. For ICs or other applications the coloured Teflon would probably be OK.


Question:
I have four 3m strands of red/green wire and two 3m lengths of shielding. What kind of geometries could I consider for making SE RCA ICs to go between SFD-1 and SW51? I need 50cm long cables.

 

Your cable looks super cool! Your shark-skin suit party wizard description has me very intrigued. Thank-you for asking about the wire for me. I'll order some up.

I have I have a couple of copper cables I am working on here (neotech occ and a Duelund tin plated copper) that I will be able to compare with.

In terms of ICs. I have made a couple of unsheilded Litz braided ICs - once with Kimber wire and once with Deulund tin plated copper. I use one lead for the live, two for the drain and one connected to ground on one end only. I got the recipe and "rationale" off the internet somewhere. I compared the deulund with an Oyaide IC and I favored my DIY cable. Even though it is Tin Plated copper, I found it more lively and more open sounding on my speaker system.

 

Anyone tried these Venhaus DIY Silver Interconnects? Don't think I'll fork out for the VH Audio HyperFlex tubing, but the original recipe calls for caulk backing. Unfortunately, local construction techniques don't really use it AFAIK. Any other materials I could use? Cotton rope maybe?

 

Cotton rope should work fine for just a tube to wrap it around... if I'm reading that right. I don't want to look at christmas colored text. I haven't tried that though I barely use rca cables besides for spdif or subwoofers :/ I realize it would be a lot of work but for 9$ a ft 24awg if I absolutely had to do cotton insulated 24awg solid core silver I would get like this and cut it apart / strip the wires and put the cotton tubing on myself. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002988056356.html would be like 10$ per meter(or a little less at longer lengths) of 24awg instead of 10$ per ft... more work though to strip everything and then like 1$ per foot for cotton sleevng?

 

Just on the site making an order. The wire they referenced was the wire I was looking at. I am going to paracord these up anyways, so I am going to pick up some of this. It is insanely inexpensive...like shipping costs are the main consideration. I'm going to order up some of the USB cable, too, to try on my speakers. Thanks @gixxerwimp .

 

Just use some plain teflon tubing from some place like McMaster-Carr or where ever. Should just be the same OD so the the helix/spiral has the correct spacing. I think it's just 1/4" IIRC. But you could use really anything as long as it's flexible, but keeps the spiral intact. I built some a while back and remember not being terribly impressed, but the quality of the silver wire I was using was questionable (can't remember the company, they're no longer in business, but located in Roanoke, VA, of all places).

 

The yellow Teflon I just stripped the wires out of would have been OK, except it's been slit open longitudinally. I'll see if I can find some 1/4" OD vinyl tubing at the local hardware store. I guess the idea of the spiral is just keeping all the wires a uniform distance apart? Is this to reduce cross-talk? Are there other geometries I should be looking at? Twisted pairs? I guess slapping the shield on the outside and grounding to one end would only shield from outside interference, so wouldn't make much difference to the sound. I've only used Mogami coax for SE ICs before.

I searched for "DIY interconnect geomtries" and the Venhaus was all I came up with.

Edit: I managed to get through the red/green text and saw one of the goals was "ultra-low capacitance"

 

First of all, those are SERIOUSLY SEXY CABLES!

Second, I would forget the shielding unless you're just experimenting and doing it for fun, and just make a twisted pair.

 

given you've got a (supposedly) pure silver braided shield, you could try a variation on Jon Risch's old cross-connected Belden 89259: https://diyaudioprojects.com/Power/DIY-Belden-89259-Interconnect-Cables/

You'd just need to come up with some kind of sheathing/spacer (maybe try cotton?) between the pure silver wire in teflon in the center, and the shield.

I built a pair of these about a hundred years ago, and it's a pretty tedious process.