Soldering/splicing wires sucks

[shmokes]

OMG, so frustrating.  I needed to extend the length of the cable running from my 270 wheel to the pedals.  I'm splicing it with CAT 5e.  Getting those little ---smurfs--- to stay in place while I get the solder on them is SOOOOO difficult.  Then when I see that the tip of my heat shrink tubing has sealed closed from the heat of the soldering iron so I need to open the connection back up, cut off the heat shrink, put on some more and start all over, it makes me want to pour gasoline on the whole business and light it on fire.  I swear, I've gotta be going about this wrong.

[patrickl]

I always loved soldering. Just remember to tip both wires in solder first and when you put them together you just have to touch it with the soldering iron they are stuck instantly.

If you need help holding the wires, maybe one of these "third hand" things might help?

[Minwah]

If you need help holding the wires, maybe one of these "third hand" things might help?

I have one without the magnifying glass...pretty handy. Some things can still be fiddly though.

[DaOld Man]

Try placing an alligator clip between the solder joint and the heat shrink tubing.

[Turnarcades]

Try close-threading the spliced ends first and squezing them tight with pliers first, then suspending the area you need to solder where it won't fall slack. Heat-shrink is nice for a neat finish, but there's no shame in using good old insulation tape!

[ChadTower]

I'm splicing it with CAT 5e.  Getting those little ---smurfs--- to stay in place while I get the solder on them is SOOOOO difficult. 

Don't solder with stranded 5e.  It's like herding cats.  If you must extend with 5e then use solid core.  Much easier.  Or hell you could just crimp some ends and use an RJ45 female-female coupler.  That's probably a whole lot easier and since it's inside the cab it won't be a wear part.

[shmokes]

Try close-threading the spliced ends

What is close-threading?  Also, trying to get electrical tape around eight itty-bitty wires, all in close enough proximity to each other that they can fit in a CAT 5e cable sounds WAY harder than what I'm doing. 

Don't solder with stranded 5e.  It's like herding cats.  If you must extend with 5e then use solid core.  Much easier.  Or hell you could just crimp some ends and use an RJ45 female-female coupler.  That's probably a whole lot easier and since it's inside the cab it won't be a wear part.

I actually ordered just such a coupler at the same time I ordered the wall jack.  But it's a last resort.  A #1, I no longer have crimpers (mine belonged to my employer, back in Utah).  The CAT 5e that I'm splicing with was a patch cable, so it already had ends crimped onto it.  So, in order to use the coupler I'd either have to get a new crimping tool or do twice as much splicing.  Additionally, using the coupler won't be nearly as slick as patching one side down to a wall jack, I think, so just in terms of the cool factor (even though nobody will ever see it), I want to fail at the one before resorting to the other.

I think I finally got it all done last night.  The leads on my multimeter are too big to get into the RJ45 connector, so I couldn't test it yet.  I'll test it a little bit later today, but I'm pretty sure I got everything secured and insulated.

[ChadTower]

Dude, you can get a basic crimper at Radio Shack for like $10-15.  How much is that worth in your time?   

[shmokes]

That's a complicated question.  Since I'm living in an expensive city and my wife is bringing in all our income right now, I find myself there's more than a cost/benefit analysis that goes on before I make purchases.  There's also a cost/do-I-have-any-money analysis I have to factor into the equation.   

[patrickl]

I was thinking about crimping a connector too, but I guess having one cable looks nicer and indeed it costs to buy a crimper.

BTW When metering RJ45 connectors I tape a needle onto the multimeter leads.

[ChadTower]

Hrm.  Spend the $15 on the crimper and use the saved time to give the wife a massage.  She won't complain and you get some crimpers.

Plus, we know you.  You're going to need a crimper again.

[shmokes]

My wife won't make the connection.  She won't understand why I can't just not spend the money and give her a massage.   

Seriously, though, I have to be careful about spending.  We cut it REALLY close. 

[patrickl]

So you still haven't gotten this done?

[SavannahLion]

Hit up Craigslist or Freecycle. Several weeks ago, someone was offering up a set of tools for free that didn't sell at a garage sale. Amongst them were several crimpers. I would've snagged them myself but it happened right when my truck was out of commission. I regularly see a variety of tools on Craigs, though I admit electrical related tools don't come up very often around here.

I have some doubts as to how good of a condition crimps might be if they're on Craigs, but it's something worth looking into.

[patrickl]

Not sure why this is so difficult. Can't you just take an easy way out? Just strip the wires longer and solder them together and put insulation tape on them and then tape the whole thing up.

[Ed_McCarron]

So you still haven't gotten this done?

No, you heard him.  He cut the wires too close.

[shmokes]

So you still haven't gotten this done?

No, you heard him.  He cut the wires too close.

I don't actually know what you mean.

I could take an easy way out.  I just don't.  I could just use wire nuts and the job would take all of five minutes.  If I know that there is a better way of doing something, and I know that I can do it, I'll usually give it a shot.  A good example can be found a few posts up where I told Chad that I considered a female/female coupler, but since there was a nicer/cooler way of doing that I wanted to do it the nicer/cooler way if possible, even if it was harder.

And while I am complaining about how much trouble I'm having, as I said in that same post, I'm pretty sure I got it done last night.  I haven't toned all the wires yet to make sure, but I'm 95% confident that I got it.  A year from now, my frustration with the process will be immaterial, but I'll be more proud of the work I did than I would be if I did it the easy way, especially when I knew there was a better way.

I'm partially tooting my horn right now, I suppose, but at the same time, I'm also doing the opposite.  I'm sure many people here can relate to this kind of personality, where you spend WAY WAY WAY longer on a project than you should because you want it to be perfect.  So you spend countless hours on a detail that nobody will ever even notice anyway, when you could just cut an almost negligible corner and spend those hours doing something more productive.

[ChadTower]

You were tooting until you talked about using wire nuts on 5e strands.  Good luck with that.   

[shmokes]

I actually picked picked up the smallest wire nut I could find at Ace just to test it out in case I gave up on my original plan.  It seemed to hold fine.  If it didn't, though, I could just strip off a bunch more insulation, twist them together, throw on some hot glue or liquid electrical tape (more or less what Patrick said) -- same result minus the wire nut.  My point remains the same.

Plus, I didn't mention that the next time I end up splicing wires down the road it will no longer be my first time.  That's a pretty big benefit, and one I wouldn't have if I took the easy route.

[ChadTower]

Oh, the nut may hold, but the 5e strand alone is about as strong as a piece of hair.  Not designed to bear any force whatsoever. 

If you want practice splicing wires in a normal way work on some pins.  You'll get more practice than you need.

[shmokes]

Heh . . . I won't get a pinball machine into the house until I have an actual house with a dedicated play room.  That's quite a number of years down the road.

[Ed_McCarron]

So you still haven't gotten this done?

No, you heard him.  He cut the wires too close.

I don't actually know what you mean.

Attempt at funny -- FAILED.

You made the comment:

Seriously, though, I have to be careful about spending.  We cut it REALLY close. 

I'll go back to EE now.

[shmokes]

Ah ha . . . yeah, it would have taken a psychic to get that joke 

[shmokes]

Punched down the other side to a jack.  Toned everything out and I'm golden.     Definitely glad I did it the hard way.  It looks great and is super strong.  I used 1/16" heat shrink on all the inner wires, and then slid a larger piece over the whole cable, so it still just looks like a single (albeit two-toned) cable.  But it's much longer now and has an RJ45 connector and jack in the middle of it.

[patrickl]

Lol. Well done.

[unclet]

Whenever I want to solder two wires together I use painterstape (ie: blue tape) to hold the wires down to a piece of scrap wood.  I line up the wires before taping to ends of the wires are touching each other.  I then use my soldering iron and solder the ends together.  Works great for me.  I can set up about 4 to 5 sets of wires at one time and then solder each pair quickly.

[shmokes]

I'll have to remember that.  That would have been handy.

[shmokes]

Grrr  . . . something's not working right after all.

The wheel (a Logitech Momo Force) works fine with the power unplugged (no force feedback, of course), but goes nuts like every button on it is being pressed simultaneously with the power plugged in.  I toned everything out, and I know there are no shorts, but I'm afraid that with 24v of electricity running down the wires I'm now getting crosstalk in the cable.  And to make matters worse, my only multimeter is a crappy little pocket thing from radio shack that runs on watch batteries, and the batteries just went dead.   

Ugh . . . I have visions of this turning into a nightmare to fix.  And just when I thought I was in the clear.

edit: Hmm . . . I just looked up info on Power Over Ethernet, and it's spec'd for 48+v and much higher amperage than my power brick is giving.  I have a couple points in the cable where pairs were untwisted for splicing.  Maybe that's where the crosstalk is occurring.  Or maybe it's not crosstalk at all, but some other problem.  I haven't used the wheel in a couple years.  It's just been stored, waiting for me to start working on my cab again.  But it worked fine the last time I used it a couple years ago..

 

[shmokes]

I'm trying to decide what to do here.  I can't think of anything other than crosstalk that could be causing this problem.  I really wanted to use the Ethernet port, but I'm just not sure that it's going to work now.  Can anyone recommend another way to lengthen the cord running between my wheel and pedals?  I chose to splice it to an Ethernet patch cable and jack because I need the cable to have a break in the middle of it so I can feed the cable through an opening not a whole lot bigger than an RJ45 connector.  And it won't be permanently installed once it's in, so I can't just cut it, feed it, and then make a permanent splice.  I need some kind of connector in between.

The original cable is permanently attached to the pedal base, and connects to the steering well with a DB25 connector (way too big to feed through the opening).  It consists of six wires, four of which are 26 gauge, and two are 22, or possibly 20 gauge.

[patrickl]

Are you sure about the cat5 cable being able to take the load? These wires are awfully thin. If the original power wires were 20 gauge, it could carry 3 times the load of your 24 gauge cat5 wires. I'd say at best you'd get 1 amp at 12V over a single cat 5 wire

If the original cable contains only 6 wires, you could double up the wires used for power in the cat5 cable.

Do you really think crosstalk is the problem? I thought that was only a problem when you want to rush a high speed digital signal across the line. For the crude signals of a steering wheel this shouldn't be a problem should it? Or is there a USB signal going over the cable or something?

I guess you could try routing the power over a separate cable, but that would mean a lot of soldering again and a pretty ugly result too.

[shmokes]

I drew a picture of my setup so my descriptions will hopefully make more sense.

I did double up the power cables.  So on the CAT 5 cable I am using all 8 wires.  It does strike me as crosstalk, or at least EMI.  For example, if I plug in the power, but I disconnect the cable at my splice, I can get phantom signals simply by holding the two cables on either side of the splice, one in each hand.  I don't even have to be touching the ends of the wires on the cable running up to the steering wheel.  I just grip that wire in my fist, and then when I touch the ends of the wires on the cable coming from the pedal base the PC registers signals as though the gas and brake pedals are being pressed. 

It really seems like the load is just too much for the cable, I think, since everything tones out fine, and everything (including the pedals) work perfectly so long as the power is not plugged in.  I thought/hoped doubling up the power cables would give enough throughput, but something's not working and that is my prime suspect.

By the way, there is a USB cable signal at one point in the equation.  That DB25 connector has two cables coming out of it. One is the data cable running from the pedal base to the wheel, the other is a USB cable running from the wheel to the PC. 

I guess you could try routing the power over a separate cable, but that would mean a lot of soldering again and a pretty ugly result too.

This is what I'm thinking I'll have to do.  I suppose I could use quick disconnects to make the break in that cable.  Ughh . . . the thought of cutting all that work off and starting again from scratch is not pleasant.  By the way, the output of the power brick is .75 amp at 24V.  I thought for sure that doubling up the wires would be plenty, especially considering the load that goes over the wires in POE (power over ethernet).  That's kinda why I'm thinking that I'm getting crosstalk at my splices.  It seems to me, going on little more than gut, that these wires should be able to handle the load.

[ChadTower]

Some 5e is better than other 5e.  You could simply have a 5e cable that is manufactured at the low (or under) end of the specs. 

Hate to say it but Cat6 may be a lot more likely to do what you're trying... much higher specs and is easier to get solid core.

[shmokes]

Oh . . . actually it is a cat 6 wire (stranded).  Cat 5e jack, though.

[ChadTower]

Oh . . . actually it is a cat 6 wire (stranded).  Cat 5e jack, though.

Really doubtful there is any crosstalk going on in the jack if your current is within the wiring specs.  It's probably happening where you untwisted the pairs.  That really undermines the spec.

[Ed_McCarron]

Some 5e is better than other 5e.  You could simply have a 5e cable that is manufactured at the low (or under) end of the specs. 

Hate to say it but Cat6 may be a lot more likely to do what you're trying... much higher specs and is easier to get solid core.

Not necessarily true.  Cat (5,6,etc) gets its noise immunity via the balanced drivers at each end when used in an ethernet network scenario.

Passing DC (even fast-cycling DC like data...) its just plain, old, skinny wire.  I go nuts trying to talk people out of running RS-232 over any distance when they tell me "But its cat6... It should be better than shielded twisted pair..."

[shmokes]

Well, Cat 6 is considerably more expensive than Cat 5, so I hope there's a physical difference in the cable. 

[ChadTower]

Well, Cat 6 is considerably more expensive than Cat 5, so I hope there's a physical difference in the cable. 

There is, I've ripped open quite a few of both.  Cat6 has a lot more copper.

Passing DC it may be just skinny wire but when you're passing power level current right next to data level current and doing it with the pairs untwisted there is probably going to be interference.  It's not designed to shield inside the sheath beyond the isolation of the twisted pairs.

[patrickl]

There is, I've ripped open quite a few of both.  Cat6 has a lot more copper.

Always? I have cat 5e and cat6 patch cables and they are both 24 AWG. I'd assume they contain the same amount of copper.

I have solid cat6 and that's 23 AWG, so that sounds like more copper than the 24 AWG cables, but I've seen solid being sold in 24 AWG too.

[ChadTower]

Always? I have cat 5e and cat6 patch cables and they are both 24 AWG. I'd assume they contain the same amount of copper.

How could I verify all of it?  Of the ones I've seen it has been pretty consistent.  Most of it has been 22awg or 23awg and I've never seen cat5/5e with more than 24awg.

[patrickl]

Well when you claim that "Cat6 has a lot more copper" then that implies this is always the case. It's the difference between saying "there is" and "there might be".

Personally I've never never seen stranded Cat 6 cables with more than 24 AWG. Of course it might exist, but it's far less common than with solid core installation wire.