[SStealth]

Hey everybody, just thought i'd post soem tinkering i've been doing with some rca cables.

I have starting making my own cables using solid core copper wire.

The process involves individually heatshrinking 0.8mm solid copper wire with 2mm heat shrink.

I use 3 strands of wire individually heatshrinked in different colours.

I then braid these 3 heatshrinked wires.

After braiding I solder one rca end on, using silver solder. The red wire is + signal the white wire is - signal and the black is a filler wire that is only connected at one end (the source) to provide limited shielding.

I then slide another black piece of heatshrink about 6mm in size over the wire all the way up to cover the soldered rca.

I then slide the rca cover on and screw together.

I then place the other rca cover onto the wire with another small piece of 6mm heatshrink about 20mm long. I slide this down the wire and out of the way.

I then solder the other rca end on (just the red and white, black left covered by its heatshrink). Slide the smaller 20mm piece of shrink back up and over the solder joins and then slide and screw the rca cover on.

And finished. I made a few of these cables and sent them to some members on the Australian Mobile electronics website and am now awaiting their test results back after using them in their cars.

I will eventailly make the same cables using silver wire instead of copper and see if this yeilds a difference. However still waiting for the first lot to be tested.

In the home environment they work perfectly and sound great however i dont have a working car install to test them myself.

Anyway on with the pics

 

[SStealth]

last pic

 

[shadowfactory]

however i dont have a working car install to test them myself.

/////Alpine F#1 (DVI-9990)(PXI-H990)
Sinfoni (45.2x) (45.2x) (90.2x) (90.2x) (S 25 T)(S 100 M) (S 165 W) (S 1200 SW)
Alpine (TME-740BT)

All that amazing gear and no car?


Those are nice and thin, I like 'em. Braiding them must take forever though. =/

 

[SStealth]

I do have a car, but its not ready to be taken off the raod for the full install yet. Just bought it brand new last year and it was purchased solely on its car audio characteristics. I've been planning and planning and slowly gathering parts and doing research. came second in the national australian amateur competition in 07 in my ute (truck) and this new car should see me near the top in the expert comp. i hope.

Antony

 

[Luke352]

The concept of using a solid conductor is poor when used in a car environment IMO since there is lots of bending and twisting required which will introduce stress cracking in the conductor which will degrade the signal significantly more then using a conventional multi strand conductor since the thinner strands are no where near as likely the suffer stress fractures, also the fact that you have braided it has probably promoted the damage to occur sooner.

To make my point more relevent, I work in aviation and most cable have minimum bend radius's that should not be exceeded, but some of the more important ones you have to be very careful with bend radius's is fibre optics, and coaxial style cable, and the coaxial style have a solid conductor like your RCA, part of the issue is damaging the insulation in coaxial cables but it is also about damageing the conductor.

I think your on the right path with making your own RCA's it's just there are much more suitable materials for use in a car.

 

[chad]

No shield? Does the sending unit have differential outputs?

 

[SStealth]

The concept of using a solid conductor is poor when used in a car environment IMO since there is lots of bending and twisting required which will introduce stress cracking in the conductor which will degrade the signal significantly more then using a conventional multi strand conductor since the thinner strands are no where near as likely the suffer stress fractures, also the fact that you have braided it has probably promoted the damage to occur sooner.

To make my point more relevent, I work in aviation and most cable have minimum bend radius's that should not be exceeded, but some of the more important ones you have to be very careful with bend radius's is fibre optics, and coaxial style cable, and the coaxial style have a solid conductor like your RCA, part of the issue is damaging the insulation in coaxial cables but it is also about damageing the conductor.

I think your on the right path with making your own RCA's it's just there are much more suitable materials for use in a car.

Thanks luke, I didn't really give any thought to the bending through the car etc. I mainly only made them 1 to 2 meters long for connecting between processors and amps, so hopefully not to much bending. I did make some using stranded copper wire but they were twice as thick when finished. I will try and find some more stranded wire to make some more and test them aswell.

 

[SStealth]

No shield? Does the sending unit have differential outputs?

Not sure what you mean, please explain? Still new to this cable business and welcome all feedback, especially what i've done wrong.

Thanks Chad

Antony

 

[SStealth]

What is the third conductor tied to?


Edit: Nevermind, didn't read. That's not a shield.

Not really a sheild more a filler for braiding. What would you recommend for a shield in this instance?

Thanks for any help.

Antony

 

[Fiercetimbo17]

Some techflex would make it look really nice.

 

[SStealth]

Yeah, that will be used in the final ones, these are just test ones and i dont really want to waste the tech flex.

Ant

 

[chad]

Not sure what you mean, please explain? Still new to this cable business and welcome all feedback, especially what i've done wrong.

Thanks Chad

Antony

Shielded cables are intended for unbalanced single ended use while twisted cables are intended for use where the signal is balanced (both conductors carry audio, one is inverted) Telco is the Tp king, most audio twisted cables are also shielded to help against EMI/RFI in case the CMRR goes south.

 

[SStealth]

Ok, so using the pxi to my sinfoni's with a length of not more than 1m for any cable, shorter for some, in the boot area only, I could get use a simple twisted pair with or without a shield or the cable i'm making with or without a shield?

 

[chad]

It will probably work.. but may not, depends on how close a source of electrical noise is.

 

[JayHRC51]

Telco is the Tp king, most audio twisted cables are also shielded to help against EMI/RFI in case the CMRR goes south.

Does Tp stand for twisted pair? Sorry, I know next to nothing about cable acronyms.

Is it possible to use Cat6 cable for RCA patch cables? With any success that is. I actually have a friend that can get me Cat6 by the 1000' box for free. So if it can be used for RCA's that would be interesting.

 

[chad]

Yes TP as in twisted pair, and yes you CAN use cat 5 as long as the send and receive units use balanced protocol and not unbalanced.

 

[bobduch]

But should you not try your native Eichmann copper bullets?
There was a thread on Audiogon (a year ago, at least, I think) by a guy who was making his own. Very involved. He tried different gauges of copper and silver wire and each was run through teflon. See if you can find it. It was pretty good. He also tried a few different rca's.

 

[chad]

I need to grab some of those some time and give them a shot

 

[JayHRC51]

Very interesting! I'm not sure that I understand the balanced protocol deal, would it say this on the spool box?

Is Cat5 the only effective choice or is Cat6 okay to? After my last post I went out to check my shop and I actually have several hundred feet laying around from the last basement remodel I did. Link to the exact wire I have is below.

With the below cable, could I just get my hands on some RCA jacks (connectors), other misc stuff, and basically start assembling cables?

Commscope SYSTIMAX GigaSpeed Cat6 Cable - 550MHz PVC CMR 1000 Ft

 

[chad]

Balanced is not in the wire, it in the unit sending the signal and receiving the signal. There will be 2 active lines, one the original signal, the other that has it's phase inverted.