Ok, i hate double posting but the 2 are each on their own subject and this one has pictures so i didnt want to combine them.
So as i stated before i got my star quad cable and connectors from markertek
finally had time tonight to bother making some cables.
Im not going to do the walk through like brschmid already did but i will do a pic by pic sequence, with a tiny
description of each.
1. some supplies
A. Star Quad with Techflex on it.
B. 3 extra pieces of quad cable
C. 2 extra pieces of techflex
D. SwitchCraft straight plugs, ones mentioned by brschmid (plugs, barrels, and sleves)
E. Canare plugs, ones mentioned by brschmid.
F. My Kershaw onion knief w/ half serated blade (best wire stripper ever by personal opinion :P )
2. cabl stripped bout 1/2 inch. shows the rubber outside, metal braid, thread, and wires in their natural twist.
3. Cable stripped. see picture for explanation.
4. cable stripped and conductor wires stripped and seperated. barrels and sleves PUT ON.
5. solder points unsnipped. marked 1 2 3, 3 is ground, look at brschmids post for other 2 (its 2am i forget)
6. solder points snipped. still marked 1 2 3.
7. solder points from other end of cable still 1 2 3. (i bent the prongs a tad to make it easier on myself)
8. finished 8 inch cable, with orange star quad and grey techflex, and the switch craft plugs.
Ok, thats the assembly steps, these next pictures go over some tips i figured out to make things a tad easier on
yourself, or atleast they did for me.
1. i think brschmid went over this, but be carefull on how much of the rubber you strip off, and take the time to
compare the depth of the plug and its conenctors. on the first 12 inch cable i made with the grey star quad i
stripped a little too much rubber off and the crappy radioshack plug was not that deep. well as you can see the the
plug isnt deep enough for the amount of rubber i stripped, so i have this horrid gap. i plan to fix it with heat
shrink later.
2. when putting the the techflex on i suggest leaving a tad off since its not expanded you can slip the barrel and
sleve on the cable and flex much easier. youll figure it out pretty quick since the ends of techflex tend to frey
quite bad when trying to slide it on the cable. Also its not the easiest thing to pull on the cable to being with,
but it works like a chinese finger trap, so push it together and then slide it on. And if you look in the assembly
pictures i have the edge of the stripped area taped with blue painters tape (doesnt leave sticky residue) to hold
the techfex tight so it doesnt frey while working on the inner wires.
3. The hardest thing i had to figure out was how to tell which wires were which on the other end. I didnt want to
spend 80 bucks or so on a multimeter, since i didnt have one already. so i did a little improvising. I used a
LED(2)and 4 tiny button cell batteries(1). I stripped all 4 of the inner wires on one side of cable, and only 2 on
the other. i hooked the batteries to the end with the 2 exposed wires(3), then tested each wire on the other side
systematically with the LED. ghetto but it worked.
.
