Radio Shack 1/8" plugs... Discussion

[kramer5150]

So... Ive been lazy... just going to radio hack and buying their gold plugs. These are the gold ones with the knurled shaft and spring-strain relief.

DAYUM!! out of 6 connectors 3 are no good, and 1 needed solder re-flow for the "pin" contact. I think the weak point is the junction between the metal solder "tabs" and the actual connector plug.
I have had equally bad luck with the connectors at Frys.

What am I doing wrong?

40 watt weller pencil, small tip (like a #2 pencil) plenty of flux. To remove all the excess flux I spray the assembly down with plastic-safe electronics parts cleaner.

Is it just me? Ive done various driver transplants, headphone mods and built 2 cmoys... but this has me stumped.

For my last few cable builds Ive been using those cheap pre-made extensions at radio shack, and splicing them open....

The electrical path is much simpler compared to the forementioned RS DIY connectors.

Heres a close-up... You can see just how simple the conduction path is. Its literally a straight gold bar, from the tip to the solder pad.

Heres the prototype I did. I just cut away all the plastic housing to expose the solder pads. I used small segments of star-quad.

Lots of flux...

A little hot melt glue to secure everything...

Heres the finished connector. I used the same technique, and added 2 layers of heatshrink over the hot melt glue.

All comments welcome!!!

 

[tangent]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kramer5150 What am I doing wrong?

Your mistake is in believing "gold" is an indicator of quality. I'll take my cheap nickel-plated Canare mini plugs over those overpriced gold-plated rat shack ones any day.

 

[thrawn86]

my main complaint is that the tabs are *flimsy*. best to just buy a bunch of 2$ jacks at partsexpress. cheaper and better

 

[Emon]

The solder tabs on the DIY RatShack connectors may have been coated with some kind of very light clearcoat or anti-oxident that your flux only partially removed. Try sanding it lighting or using some fine steel wool to expose the metal. If that doesn't work, the connectors are made from a really poor quality pot metal, i.e. a mix of random scrap. Wouldn't suprise me but it's probably easier just to use copper for such small connectors. But the gold plating might be of poor quality (even low caret gold should solder fine, since brass is great for soldering)...but yeah, sand or steel wool away the solder tabs.