Pickup cable splicing - tutorial

[Zerberus]

Re: Pickup cable splicing - tutorial

ANy electronics store should have heat shrink tubing in multiple sizes available.

It can be heated with a hairdryer, or if you´re a bit more experienced (and careful) a lighter will also suffice in a pinch. According to some you can also do it w/ the soldering iron, but this I´ve never tried...

NIce post, OD

[larry_emder]

Re: Pickup cable splicing - tutorial

This will make me sound like a total noob, where does one get heat shrink from, and how do you 'heat' it to 'shrink' it????

I havent a clue!

[octavedoctor]

In response to some questions posed by a member in another thread, I thought I would post this series of images showing how to do a "professional" cable splice.

In fact, there is no such thing as a real professional would replace the whole cable, but I'm sure you understand my meaning.

If you have to do this, do it this way...

Suppose you have this s/h pickup and the cable is too short



Get some cable that is as close to the original as possible. This has a different colour coding and braided instead
of foil screen



Strip the screening back to a working length, at least an inch and trim the insulation back by a few millimetres. Tin all exposed wire with solder so that it's nicely silvered



slip some heat shrink tubing over the wire



bring the two bits together with just a touch of a tinned soldering iron tip



then pass the heat shrink over the join and shrink it in place with the tip of the iron



Repeat with all four strands. Try to correlate any colour coding as best you can; here I have connected light green to dark green, red to red, blue to black ( B to B) and finally yellow to white. This makes it easier to remember the equivalence...

Note, on the left the length of heat shrink ready to pass over the splice



pass the heat shrink over the splice and shrink it down but keep the screen wires OUT of the heat shrink



join them up



prepeare a piece of foil



wrap it around the joint in a broad spiral so that all the edges overlap by a considerable margin then pres it down so that it makes good contact with the screen wires



finally slip some more heat shrink over it



shrink it down so that it keeps the screen in place and tight against the lead wires for both halves of the screen.


Job's a good 'un!

Remember that as with anything, the final result is only as good as your skill in soldering and execution of the job. Neat work generally produces a good result. If a job fails, it is usually because of the following reasons;

bad solder joints caused by insufficient/excessive heat/improperly prepared surfaces

Insufficient attention to finishing off, e.g. using too short a length of heat shrink so that bits of foil are left sticking out so that they can short against points on the signal path on other components.

Misjudging the length of foil needed so that there are gaps in its coverage.

Economising by using tape instead of heat shrink, which doesn't compress the foil against the screen lead wires enough and can come loose, taking the foil with it.