Cable soldering advice

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robthemac
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Cable soldering advice

Post by robthemac »

Can anyone suggest how I would be best to solder this? It's a stereo 1/4 inch jack to go in to my Iridium. The other ends will be two mono jacks to come out of the left and right outputs of my Flint.

Thanks!
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Jops wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 7:46 am Spring is the comic sans of reverbs anyway.

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Re: Cable soldering advice

Post by jeremyb »

This kind of thing is a pain, if you can find some thin shielded wire that will let you get two of it in there I'd go that way, normally I just buy a hosa or similar branded cable for this kind of job, saves a lot of hassles!
Slowy wrote: That's the problem; everything rewarding is just such hard work. Regret takes much less effort.

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Re: Cable soldering advice

Post by NippleWrestler »

DO you mean you need a wiring diagram or help holding the things in place etc while you work?

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Re: Cable soldering advice

Post by robthemac »

Yeah, honestly it's more of a project for the sake of improving my soldering skills than actually needing the cable.
Jops wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 7:46 am Spring is the comic sans of reverbs anyway.

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Re: Cable soldering advice

Post by robthemac »

NippleWrestler wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 12:42 pm DO you mean you need a wiring diagram or help holding the things in place etc while you work?
Wiring. I've got alligator clips set up to help.
Jops wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 7:46 am Spring is the comic sans of reverbs anyway.

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Re: Cable soldering advice

Post by MikeC »

Don't close strain relief collar until you've finished soldering. Else it melts the cable's outer insulation layer.
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Re: Cable soldering advice

Post by NippleWrestler »

Something like this?

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Re: Cable soldering advice

Post by robthemac »

NippleWrestler wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 1:22 pm Something like this?

Image
Thanks! Yeah that top one looks about right. Just not sure which should be left and right. Not that it should matter much, just coming out of a stereo reverb.
Jops wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 7:46 am Spring is the comic sans of reverbs anyway.

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Re: Cable soldering advice

Post by jeremyb »

Tip is usually left, ring is right on TRS :)
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Re: Cable soldering advice

Post by robthemac »

Thanks for the help. I put this together last night. It is made to run between the left and right outputs of my Flint into the stereo input of my Iridium.

First issue: my multi-meter dies so unable to test any components or the end product.
Second issue: after I solder everything together, left side work fine, nothing from right side. Dodgy jack on the right side is my suspicion as it was pretty wriggly.
Third issue: replace the jack on the right side with a decent pancake jack. After soldering it all together, I realize that I had forgotten to remove the screw-on bottom half of the previous jack, which is now sliding merrily up and down the length of the cable and unable to be removed. I lol, then tape it to the cable so at least it stays in one place.
Fourth issue: test new cable. Left side works fine. Again nothing from right side. I prepare to throw my toys. Decide to use the right side only as a mono-mono cable and it works perfectly. So basically both sides work fine individually, but not when plugged in to the stereo input of the Iridium. Wrack my brains for a couple of hours over dinner/movie thinking about what the issue would be. No ability to test the Iridium or Flint inputs. Assume that my Iridium's stereo input jack is faulty. Can't work out how to prove or disprove the theory. Occam's razor suggests that my cable-making skills are more likely to be the issue than Strymon's reliability. While looking up the Iridium user manual, I accidentally stumble across something on the Strymon website which tells me there are internal jumpers inside some pedals to set input to mono or stereo. Open Iridium. No jumper. Open Flint: jumper present and set to stereo (by previous owner). Change it to mono, and everything works perfectly. Basically, the Flint was expecting to see stereo input, so the mono input it received was just sent to the left. My original cable may well have worked fine :clap:

TLDR: multiple fuck-ups on the cable, but eventually the issue was internal settings in the Flint that lead me to doubt myself. All working now!
Jops wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 7:46 am Spring is the comic sans of reverbs anyway.

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