Tedious, Difficult and Fulfilling. The three words to describe cable making.
Hey all, been a long time lurker and finally went ahead to make my first ever headphone/earphone/iem cable.
Wires are 28 AWG from taobao (super cheap) connectors are from taobao too. Viablue plug is from Null Audio in Singapore. Heatshrink are all from various Sim Lim Tower shops.
It's a 8 core hybrid cable with copper and silver-plated copper. Beautiful stuff.
HeatShrink everything. From Y-splitter to stress reliefs, all are made from clear heatshrink with hot glue for adhesives.
Braiding at the start was intensely difficult especially when you lose focus. Cables go all over the place and their coiling effect makes it worse to work with. Perseverance pulled me through.
I've only had 1 instance where i soldered connections and that was 5 years ago in Secondary 2 Design and Technology class.
First connector was a very good looking silver tube 2 pin. And i had to screw it up. Soldered it on for too long and the plastic warped and the pin changed positions. I knew they weren't going to work anymore so i switched to a second piece. This one was less good looking. Even worse, the covering of the connector could not fit my quad braid. So i just settled for heatshrink around the connector. Red for right, blue for left.
In the end it worked out. It's beautiful. There's connections running through the whole wire. There was immense pleasure and fulfillment when the cable was completed.
All in i just want to say, don't give up on DIY so early. It's difficult, it's tiring. It can get quite expensive too. But it's one of the greatest experiences I've ever had. I just did this on the carpet at home. No real workshop table or a room. I'm only 18 and studying very hard for my examinations and I decided to pick this up to relax. (It wasn't relaxing). Go ahead and get into DIY, you won't regret it.
Anyways, this cable is a request from my friend. I told him i wanted to try to make even though i don't have any detachable cable iems. So these will be for his Westone 4 and I will be getting his impressions real soon.