[gc335]

Awesome! That looks good.

Connector? You mean at the source? I have a few Eidolic plugs already. I'll use those.

 

[kn0ppers]

With Eidolic you'll be fine. Still kind of sad nobody sells those in the whole EU.

Edit: I just hope that wire doesn't suck, the price would be okay as like a standard wire for braided cables. I`m not that much into paying a couple dollars per feet and like at least the equivalent of 50€ just for wire for one cable..

 

[Allanmarcus]

I posted this wire a couple pages ago I think, it says it's OCC, so should be at least OFC I guess. 1,1mm OD and 110 Cores should be good for what you are trying to do, definitely enough AWG. 1.1mm should go fine with Paracord Micro or Type I. My 10m haven't arrived yet, otherwise I would upload pictures. 4 of those easily fit into most 2.5mm TRRS Plugs. Just make sure your sleeving is nice and tight and you should be fine?

Which connectors were you thinking about using?

Tha is really interesting wire. Here's the link to it in English.

My estimates are that 110 strands of .04mm wire is 25.7 AWG.
$26.13 shipped to the USA for 10m is 32.9 feet and $0.79/foot. Not bad, if the wire is special.

@kn0ppers , sis you order any and try it?

 

[Paladin79]

If no one has ordered it, I will grab 30 meters or so to play around with. Chances are it will take a while to get here though. I want to test more Litz wire in the near future so I may grab a roll of it as well.

 

[kn0ppers]

When I said mine hasn't arrived it was before I went to the post box...

It actually arrived and is kind of thinner than I expected, comes on a spool with a funny direction marking (just to keep bad chinese spirits away I will follow it). Once we have daylight here again I will post pictures and remove some of the insulation and take some pictures as well. I will also check if it's really 1.1mm OD or less. Those 112 strands must be very thin...

I also got some of this litz wire with blue coating. Looks amazing, not hard to work with at all as the blue coating melts of after a few seconds. I also have a solder pot but didn't need to fire it up (also I don't use that one with my Mundorf Silver Gold Supreme solder). I will post a picture in the gallery of that one.

 

[Paladin79]

I do like the looks of the blue Litz wire, I may have to get some of that for myself!

 

[afonsoocosta]

Hi guys, I posted here that i want to make a custom cable to my DT 770 pro. I'm just starting now and I have to admite that I dont have a clue what to do .

https://imgur.com/a/uPYOE Can someone what this photos and try to help me? I have a Van damme 4 wires cable and a jack with 3 connections, can someone help me link the wires with the connector?

Thanks in advance

 

[Paladin79]

What you have there is a connecter type that I hate but I will try to help lol. The ground is where the clamp is, that is the sleeve. Tip of the connector is the gold post farthest back, ring is next one toward the front. Do you have an ohmmeter? Solder flux?'

The cable is obviously star quad. You can connect two wires to the sleeve (ground), one to the tip and one to the ring and not hook up the outer braid. If you have dual entry on the other end, you have a ground wire for each channel, ring is right channel hot, Tip is left channel hot.

Personally I would use another type of connector with solder lugs like Neutrik or Amphenol but it is possible to solder to those round posts if you use flux to clean them well before soldering. Sorry I do not have a lot of time today so I hope the above makes sense. A meter can tell you which wire is which and which portion of the connector is tip, ring, and sleeve measuring from front to back.

Tom

 

[kn0ppers]

So usually what you would want for making a new cable for a DT 770 Pro is a cable with a twisted pair and a shield. You would then on both sides use the shield as ground and the 2 conductors for left/right. Now if your cable has shielding you can use the shielding as a common ground and 2 conductos for each side, or you could connect the shielding to ground and leave it unconnected on the headphone side, then 1 conductor for each sides ground and signal connection. Or you ditch the shield and do it like Paladin79 said.

And you will want to pre-tin your connector and wires. Put a little flux on the contacts of the plugs and pre-tin those. Then pre-tin the wires, also using flux. If you want to use the shielding, twist it together, use a little piece of heatshrink over it and you can pre-tin it easily, again using flux. I personally use halogen free, no clean flux and eutectic, lead free solder with a high silver and a small gold content, but usually any lead free, eutectic solder with like 3-4% silver should be perfect for those kinds of connections. Most of those solders don't have very good wetting behaviour (is that what you call it?), so that's where some of that extra flux comes in handy. You don't want to use too much of it, but it's actually hard to mess up when you use common sense.

About your connector, just like Paladin said: It is a standard 3.5mm TRS. TRS means Ground on the sleeve, right channel on the ring, left channel on the tip. There are pictures all over google about the pin-out of TRS connectors, for checking your work you can just check with a simple multimeter. If you don't own one, I think you can get them as low as 10-15$.

 

[Autostart]

Good morning friends. I was wondering if someone can recommend a link to some nice copper wire to build a balanced cable for my LCD-X and HD800. I ordered the connectors but get totally lost when it comes to the wire. I am running a Woo Audio WA22>Audio GD R2R 11.

I was going to order this Norne wire but it seems that its out of stock past a qty of 7 feet which is no help.

 

[Paladin79]

So usually what you would want for making a new cable for a DT 770 Pro is a cable with a twisted pair and a shield. You would then on both sides use the shield as ground and the 2 conductors for left/right. Now if your cable has shielding you can use the shielding as a common ground and 2 conductos for each side, or you could connect the shielding to ground and leave it unconnected on the headphone side, then 1 conductor for each sides ground and signal connection. Or you ditch the shield and do it like Paladin79 said.

And you will want to pre-tin your connector and wires. Put a little flux on the contacts of the plugs and pre-tin those. Then pre-tin the wires, also using flux. If you want to use the shielding, twist it together, use a little piece of heatshrink over it and you can pre-tin it easily, again using flux. I personally use halogen free, no clean flux and eutectic, lead free solder with a high silver and a small gold content, but usually any lead free, eutectic solder with like 3-4% silver should be perfect for those kinds of connections. Most of those solders don't have very good wetting behaviour (is that what you call it?), so that's where some of that extra flux comes in handy. You don't want to use too much of it, but it's actually hard to mess up when you use common sense.

About your connector, just like Paladin said: It is a standard 3.5mm TRS. TRS means Ground on the sleeve, right channel on the ring, left channel on the tip. There are pictures all over google about the pin-out of TRS connectors, for checking your work you can just check with a simple multimeter. If you don't own one, I think you can get them as low as 10-15$.

What Knoppers stated is sound advice, the cable you showed is star quad so it will have four wires and a shield (braid). Most solder is hollow core and contains flux in the center but on the type of connector you showed, extra flux and tinning are both good ideas. Use a connector like these which I greatly prefer and you have two solder lugs that you can loop the wire through without any pre-tinning and the flux inside the solder will do the job. It is also a better solder joint from from what I learned in college.

I was taught that you never rely on just the solder to bond two metals together, loop your wire through a solder lug and it adds strength and durability to the joint.

On the type of connector you showed, you are tacking a wire to the side of round cylinders and if you get that solder joint too hot, you run the risk of melting the plastic the Chinese generally use between those cylinders. The connectors shown above are by Amphenol on the left and Neutrik on the right. I have used hundreds of the Amphenol and thousands of the Neutrik without failure. You fill the hole of the solder lug with solder and standard 60/40 tin/lead or ROHS compliant solder works fine. I have used various solders containing silver

The "wetting" behavior I have heard of is perhaps solder flow, or capillary action. If you do use a twisted pair with a shield, it would be simpler than the wire you show. Use it with the connectors I show above and your life will be simpler for your first build.

Solder flux cleans the metal to allow for the solder to adhere better, you need extra when using the connector shown and tinning would help with the time your solder iron tip stays in contact with the wire and connector. Just remember that you are heating the wire and the connector terminal and then applying the solder. Applying the solder directly to the soldering iron tip burns off the flux and it gets less of a chance to do its job of cleaning the solder joint.

Solder type is a factor and this chart shows the melting points of metals https://www.americanelements.com/meltingpoint.html, tin and lead are going to have the lowest melting point so unless I am exporting a particular cable and ROHS compliance is a must, it is what I prefer to use. Please note that it makes good sense to wash your hands after using lead based solder and it is not a bad idea to have a small vent fan nearby. Lead is a cumulative poison.

Silver has an extremely high melting point compared to the other two materials. In my testing it is very rare to find people that can hear much difference between wires, I have never found, or really heard of anyone who can hear a difference in connectors or solder. Some folks believe in crimping the wire to the connector and eliminating solder all together. And so it goes, (Kurt Vonnegut).

 

[Kulgrinda]

Hi,

has anyone tried Viablue EPC-1 cable? Sold by meter. Any good?

http://viablue.de/com/head_phone_cable_epc.shtml

 

[Paladin79]

I happened to be helping my employees build some cables and here is an example of a quality 3.5 mm connector with stranded wire going through solder lugs. There was no pre-tinning necessary and this is a high strand count OFC wire that went through the holes in the solder lugs easily. I solder the braid to the clamp on this amphenol connector after using a hex crimp to form the clamp into a nice circle around the cable jacket. Finally there is a side view showing that braid clamp as well as the solder lug with the entire opening filled. Done properly the clear insulation slides easily over all connections. These are solder joints that will last for years since the wires are not just tacked onto the side of cylinders as shown in the earlier discussion.

 

[Oscar-HiFi]

I happened to be helping my employees build some cables and here is an example of a quality 3.5 mm connector with stranded wire going through solder lugs. There was no pre-tinning necessary and this is a high strand count OFC wire that went through the holes in the solder lugs easily. I solder the braid to the clamp on this amphenol connector after using a hex crimp to form the clamp into a nice circle around the cable jacket. Finally there is a side view showing that braid clamp as well as the solder lug with the entire opening filled. Done properly the clear insulation slides easily over all connections. These are solder joints that will last for years since the wires are not just tacked onto the side of cylinders as shown in the earlier discussion.

Yep always get the wire through the holes, forms lovely joints

 

[Paladin79]

The 3.5 mm connectors I am using in the photos are gold plated with extended tip so they can fit inside a phone or tablet case. I personally recommend this type of connector to anyone doing DIY cables. They are not expensive and available at Parts Express.
https://www.parts-express.com/amphe...source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=pla

Sorry about the messiness of the work station in the photos. My people often build in excess of 1,000 custom cables a week and the soldering stations (usually Weller) and Panavise vises get some pretty heavy usage.