DIY Cable Gallery!!

[RnB180]

i have one more question, I want to make some awesome looking, cables.

so heres my idea, i want to have two runs of canare 4s11, twised together, and then use each cable per single conductor.

Will twisting whole cables together create any negatively adverse effects? also would the extremely large gauge harm my hk receiver?

its overkill, but it'll look really cool.




here are some pics of roughly what i had in mind, i plan to clear heat tube the twisted at various points of the twist to make it stay, then use clear tech flex and resleeve both cables, then terminate with large gauge locking bananas via WBT clones.

[Prune]

The Canare cables are designed by engineers to be used in a particular way as to minimize inductance. What you propose will not improve performance, and most probably degrade it. If you have the urge to be twisting speaker cables together, try the CAT5 recipe, http://www.venhaus1.com/diycatfivecables.html

[Jam_Master_J]

My cables are Canare star quad with HGA connectors and tech-flex. Here is a picture of them (accompanied by my amp and headphones):
Picture

[HiGHFLYiN9]

MINI TO MINI
Sleeve: Teflon
Conductor: 22 ga. Silver Plated OFC x4 (2 ground)
Config: Litz braid
Termination: Canare F-12
Length: 1 Foot
Approximate Materials Cost: $15


AKG PORTABLE HEADPHONE CABLE
Sleeve: Teflon
Conductor: 22 ga. Silver Plated OFC x3
Config: Tri braid
Termination: Canare F-12, Switchcraft Mini XLR
Length: ~1 meter (long enough to run from my pocket to my head)
Approximate Materials Cost: $20

[HiGHFLYiN9]

A LESSON IN LITZ
The word Litz comes from German word litzendraht, which means "braided wire". Litz is a bundle of multiple insulated strands that has a lower ac resistance than a single strand of the same cross sectional area due to it's configuration. This is due to the reduction of the skin effect (i.e. the current of an ac signal doesn't penetrate all the way into a conductor), but is limited by the mutual coupling between the strands as defined by Jim Lux (http://home.earthlink.net/~jimlux/hv/litz.htm).

Making your own Litz braid is incredibly easy. Listed below are directions from Dennis Boyle's page: (http://home.att.net/~chimeraone/audiolitzwirebraid.html)
The flat braiding technique is simple. It consists of taking the outside right strand and passing over strands into the center of the bundle. Then you take the outside left strand and pass it over strands including the one you just brought into the center. Then you repeat the sequence. Braiding a four strand interconnect works like this. LN is the left side negative lead. LP is the left side positive lead. RP is the right side positive lead. RN is the right side negative lead. The braiding sequence is as follows:

1. Pass RN over RP
2. Pass LN over LP and RN
3. Pass RP over LN
4. Pass LP over RP and RN
5. Pass LN over LP
6. Pass RN over LN and RP
7. Pass LP over RN
8. Pass RP over LP and LN

At the end of this braiding sequence, the strands are oriented exactly like they were at the start of your braiding sequence. The left negative, left positive, right positive and right negative are in the same position for connecting the braid to the exit RCA connector.

Some more in depth articles:
Skin depth and Conductors: http://www.w8ji.com/skindepth.htm
Charles Sullivan's Optimal Choice for Number of Strands in a Litz-Wire Transformer Winding: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~sullivan/litzwire/litz.html

[djwkjp]

highflyin9-
what kind of wire do you use? i have been looking for some good teflon insulated wire.
thanks
dan

[Thaddy]

My Canare IC with Switchcraft plugs made by Zemo:

[HiGHFLYiN9]

Pic of orange, green and blue power cords

[Edwood]

Some "making of" Pics.

1/4" K1000 Cable
22AWG Solid 99.99% Silver, Cotton Sleeve insulated.

Was an absolute pain to make. Bare silver wire constantly gets snagged inside the cotton sleeves. I used a little bit of teflon insulation on the end to make it a little easier to silde it through, but it still get's snagged. But I wanted to make an "all out" budget be damned cable. The cable ended up being too thick for the Neutrik connector's "chuck" strain relief, so I had to use dual wall adhesive heatshrink for strain relief. Worked quite well, but it's not as "bulletproof" as Neutrik's.






Cotton insulated wires braided and then sealed inside a flexible rubber tube. Sealed the ends with liquid electical tape. The very ends of the wires are insulated with teflon (the rest of the cable is not) to keep the seal air tight.


Covered exposed silver and solder (after cleaning) with liquid electrical tape. Yes, I know silver oxide is still quite conductive, but I'm going for overkill here.


Speaking of overkill, I love adhesive heatshrink.


Same treatment for XLR connector



This one is a 5 footer.

-Ed

[ProFingerSk8er]

1 foot silver IC
24gaug 99.99% silver wire




^picture taken with techflex, final IC covered in nylon