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Cable Asylum Interconnects, speaker wire, power cords. Ask the Cable Guys. |
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Cable Asylum Interconnects, speaker wire, power cords. Ask the Cable Guys. |
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In Reply to: Dayton RCAs with 89259/89248 ICs ? posted by Fred Rule on May 3, 2000 at 07:37:43:
Fred, sorry i didn't get back to you right away on this. Glad you brought it up here, as it will be much easier to "kill SEVERAL birds with one stone".In order to do this and make life simple, you will need a QUALITY soldering pencil with a relatively small tip. This means NO SOLDERING GUNS unless your extremely proficient at using one in very tight places. For most of you, DON'T try it. It will be an exercise in frustration and futility, resulting a stream of bad words and things flying across the room.
Quite honestly, most of the very cheap Rat Shack soldering pencils are junk. A cheap Weller will run circles around those things in most cases. Some other helpful tools that you WILL use on other DIY projects are a set of "helping hands" ( explained later but available from Rat Shack ) and a pair of small locking hemostats. Hemostats are those fancy "locking roach clips" that doctors use. You can find these at local flea markets or possibly at Rat Shack also. Last but not least, a small damp sponge. A NON-PLASTIC type sponge is required, as you'll be using this to clean your very hot soldering tip occasionally and you don't want it to melt all over the tip.
Here's a few quick tips : Cut a small hole in the middle of the sponge. You can run your tip down inside the hole and clean all the edges very quickly and evenly. Remember that the cool, damp sponge will lower tip temperature quite noticeably, so don't try to solder INSTANTLY after cleaning the tip unless you have some type of high temperature soldering station.
(1) Twist the wiring as desired. When your all done twisting the cables together, take the RCA and hold it next to the cable with the locking collar removed. You may want to remove the factory set screw that would normally be used to dig into the shield of most coaxial assemblies, as we won't be using it and it may cause problems down the road.
(2) Eyeball the length difference that you will need between the "hot" wire going to the center pin and the ground wire, which will be soldering very close behind it directly to the inside chamber of the barrel. If your looking at the tip via the "access hatch", you'll be attaching the ground wire to the "basin" in the barrel directly behind the tip connection. Trim the wire length accordingly and then expose a SMALL amount of each conductor. Try to avoid knicking the wire if at all possible.
(3) With a clean soldering tip, lightly plate each conductor, the tip connection inside the barrel and the section of the barrel that is exposed just behind the tip. In the "catch" of the barrel, you DO want to make a very small mound of solder. Make sure you leave a small gap between your "landing pad" inside the barrel and the inner tip connection to prevent stray wires from bridging between the two. It would be pretty hard to do this, as there is a good amount of teflon behind and around the center pin. This is another reason that i wanted just a SMALL section of insulation removed from each conductor. The more exposed wire that you have, the easier it is to short out or have fray's.
The barrel will get hot and you may need to hold it with some type of tool while doing this. Rat Shack has some "neat-o" things called "helping hands" that consist of alligator clamps on a swiveling base for things like this. It can hold pieces in place AND act as a heat sink at the same time.
(4) Now that all the connection points have been plated, slip the wires through the barrel end and CAREFULLY bend the "hot" wire so that it is sticking out of the open area and try to tuck it out of the way as best as possible. It's okay if it seperates from the ground wire slightly, as it is NOT super critical in this area. Carefully apply heat to the barrel of the connector and ground wire at the same time, holding them in place as best possible. The clamping "hemo's" may come in handy here. You may need to add more solder, but use it sparingly and make sure that you don't bridge anything.
You are at one of the most critical points of making a good connection RIGHT now. Solder needs to dry evenly on it's own while being held very still. Any attempt to "help it along" by blowing on it, etc.. will result in a lower quality connection. Any movement also lowers the quality of the connection. Steady hands and patience are good things when it comes to working on electronics.
A good solder joint is shiny and smooth. Rough edges or burrs can slice or puncture the other wires' insulation and cause an intermittent short. Take your time and do it right ONE time. After you've done a few of these, you will develop better skills, find shortcuts and your assembly technique will improve. After your first few attempts and mistakes, your dis-assembly techniques will improve also : )
(5) Now that the ground wire has been attached, you need to position the "hot" wire and carefully bond it to the tip. Same precautions apply here. Avoid excess heat, easy on the solder and neatness counts. Once the barrel and tip have cooled sufficiently, screw on the locking collar and admire your handi-work. You have now completed one side of a mono interconnect. Only 234 billion more to go !!!!
Keep in mind that i did NOT mention using a braid for shielding purposes, nylon / fiberglass woven braid for a jacket or the use of heat shrink as a strain relief. You will have to improvise if using either of those. My only tip for those that will be using heat shrink is to slide the material over the wires BEFORE you start doing ANY soldering to the RCA.
I also did not tell you when to clean your soldering tip. That is up to you. Pay attention to it, as it is important. You didn't go out of your way to buy better grade materials to have all of your connections contaminated with solder sludge. Don't go overboard though, as some low temperature soldering pencils have a long recovery time once they've just slightly cooled.
Hope this helps. If you have specific questions, post them here or email me. I'll do my best. Sean
PS... Avoid sucking in a lot of solder fumes. Lead causes brain damage and we don't need any more of that around here : )
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Follow Ups
- Assembly notes on DIY interconnects - Sean 21:59:29 05/04/00 (1)
- Re: Assembly notes on DIY interconnects - Fred Rule 07:07:28 05/05/00 (0)
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