DIY Instrument Lead Mini-Tutorial

[Simon Barden]

And don't try to heat your geraniums up to 190°C either, they won't like it.

[DrNomis_44]

And don't try to heat your geraniums up to 190°C either, they won't like it.

That's right, flowers are very sensitive to heat and we must treat them with the respect they deserve....hahahaha.


Sorry, couldn't resist so I had to throw that one in, but I was trying to be un-biased at the same time....you know how it is....okay I'll stop while I'm ahead....lol.

Now, here's a thought to meditate on.....how best to properly bias a flower?, my first thought is to add equal parts of fertilizer, sunshine, and water, and then see what happens.....um.....eh....er......ah....*scratches head*.....

[corsair]

When I started off soldering I was told that a good mechanical connection males for a good solder joint, and I've stuck to that wherever possible; putting the wire through any holes then wrapping the wire back and around so that it can stand at least a gentle tug on its own before applying the solder.

See, the TV repairman who taught me to solder was of the opinion that a good soldered join didn't need a mechanical join to be strong; as long as there wasn't too much tension on the soldered joins... like the tension in an instrument cable! I mean, we've all tried pulling a soldered join to bits, haven't we? They're pretty damn strong mechanically as well as electrically!
I've always just soldered onto whatever tags/cups/ears that were and have never had a mechanical failure that I haven't caused by treading on the cable, which is going to cause a problem regardless of the type of soldered join employed!

Of course, YMMV....

[DrNomis_44]

Rightio, it's all well and good to have a quick discussion on the materials and tools I use to make my DIY instrument leads, but you guys are probably more interested in how I actually go about making them....right?


Okay then, lets get started....


First thing I do is decide how long I'm going to make the instrument lead, I tend to go by the rule of thumb that states that it is always easier to shorten a piece of wire than to lengthen it, so, I always try to make it a bit longer than I really need it to be, although sometimes I have to work with whatever piece of cable is available, in this case I've got two pieces of Jaycar WB-1530 cable that I'm going to be using to make two leads, they are not that long, about a couple of metres or so, it doesn't really matter cause I can use them as patch leads for my pedals, the only proviso is that they work perfectly when finished.

Since the cable is already cut to length, the next thing to do is to strip the black plastic insulation off each of the ends of the cable so that I can solder the plugs onto the inner conductors and shielding braid, solder doesn't really take very well to the plastic, as I go through the process of making the lead I'll post pics so you can see what it should look like for each of the steps.


Here's a pic of the Jaycar WB-1530 cable I'm using with the insulation on both ends stripped off to about 20mm:




After doing that to both ends of the cable, I pushed the braid back against the remaining insulation so that it loosely bunched-up:






The next thing I did was to use the tip of one of my multimeter probes to make an opening in the braid so that I could pull the inner cores through it:

[DrNomis_44]

After making the hole in the braid, I carefully pulled the two inner cores and the white cotton fibers through it:



After pulling the two inner cores and the white cotton fibers through the hole i made in the braiding, this is what I was left with:




I did the same to the other end of the cabling to complete the preparation of the cable prior to soldering on the plugs.

[DrNomis_44]

You can see in the last pic I posted that the braid has been straightened-out, that's just to keep it nice and neat when I tin it prior to soldering the plug on.


Next thing I did was to trim-off the white cotton fibers so that they wouldn't get burnt by the soldering iron, that also stops them getting in the way too.


The next step is to trim the braid and the two inner cores to length and strip about 5mm of insulation off both of them.

Trimmed to length:



Inner Cores stripped:



Inner Cores twisted together:



Core and braid tinned, ready for soldering to the plug:

[DrNomis_44]

Next thing I did was to put the rubber boot and black plastic cable-clamp on the cable before soldering the cable to the plug:




If the plugs that you're using to make your instrument lead have rubber boots on them, make sure they go on first, nothing's worse than having to de-solder a plug because you forgot to put the boot on first, I know cause I've done it a few times myself.

Next, I trimmed the tinned braid back a bit, the cable is then ready to be soldered to the plug:




And finally I soldered the braid to the sleeve connection on the plug, and then the two inner cores to the tip connection, making sure I didn't inadvertently create unwanted short-circuits in the process, the plug had already been pre-tinned so it made things a lot easier for me:




Once I had got all the soldering done, I repeated the same procedure to solder a plug on the other end of the cable, I then used my multimeter to check that there was continuity between the two sleeves of the plugs, continuity between the tips of the two plugs, and no continuity between the tip/sleeves of the two plugs, the newly-made instrument lead passed all the tests so it's a good one that's ready for use and should work perfect.


That's basically how I go about making my own DIY instrument leads.

[Marcel]

For those wondering why the Cotton is there and why that we just cut it off flush - The Cotton is just filler to help the overall cable maintain its circular shape. It also helps in minimising scuffing of the centre wires when the cable is flexed during use. In the connector it serves nil purpose so can safely be removed.

[Guvna19]

Great thread Doc, and all the input from the members!

going to be a down the track project for me.

thanks Guv

[Simon Barden]

For those that haven't done it before, a quick explanation of how you strip the external insulation off the cable first would be good.