Build your own tonearm cable

Official Court Jester
Joined 2003
Paid Member
Hi,

What is the required pin diameter for a phono cable cartridge clip ?

Any DIY clips project available ?

Best regards,
Bins.

boyz at Vinyl Engine gave one good tip - find any D-sub (female ) connector - 9 or 25 oin , dismantle it , and you'll have plenty of cartridge clips .

tip: old printer or mouse or serial port ...... I can't even remember which one is female :rofl:
 
Official Court Jester
Joined 2003
Paid Member
Hi Zen,

Is that of the standard size ? Will that match all the carts ?

Best regards,
Bins.

yup

pic from VE

I tried - works like a charm
 

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cotton insulated litz wire - scavenged from old RF coils

just find any broken ( even functional is good enough :devilr: ) Boombox with MW , and pull that coil from ferrite rod

have an ample supply of "litz" 4-34 and 4-36 magnet wire that I'll gladly send a bunch to someone if they want to try it. (technically i think it is just twisted and not a true litz)

I also have to bonded triple #31 which one wire could be removed from to do two discrete runs.

these are just insulated magnet wires and do not have any cotton serving.

dave
 
Be forewarned - soldering 36ga stranded wire will drive you to the looney bin. I just finished a set of tonearm wires that went straight from cart clips to ICs to RCA connectors. 7 strand silver plated copper wire totaling 36ga. Teflon insulation. The teflon's melting point was beyond the solder temp, so I couldn't allow the solder to burn it off. Stripping it with fingernails just damaged and broke the strands. Ended up carefully and VERY lightly scoring the insulation with a very sharp razor blade, then gripping the end with fine grit sandpaper between my fingers. That worked well - those times when I didn't slice into the wires with the razor blade.

When I did get to solder, sometimes the temp of the solder melted the wire.

I don't ever want to work with that stuff again. Ugh.
 
Official Court Jester
Joined 2003
Paid Member
Hi Zen,

I searched a lot on the D-sub (female ) connectors. Found some really promising info on that. The pins are directly available for purchase: CINCH

Is that the one that is really needed ? Please suggest...

Best regards,
Bins.

maybe is faster to find any old cable with this ( or 25 ) ;

in 25 ones you'll find several unused pins ...... with unused - I mean clean , not soldered .

they all have gold plating
 

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I don't think braiding would be a good idea - would create a stiff wire and possibly impede tonearm movement/settings. Twisting may be okay, but maybe not all 4/5 wires twisted into a single twist for the same reason. The original wire I pulled from my old Thorens had a twisted pair for each channel.
 
I just rewired my Rega 250 tonearm for the second time, I used VdH silver the first time and the wire is so delicate it's very difficult to work with and connections were never perfect and finally failed after a year. This time I tried using the mouse wire and it was so much easier works great thanks for the suggestion, MOUSE wire is the best, and much cheaper
 
Few more questions to the repository

Hi,

I got a Microsoft mouse cable and the cable looks good for the tonearm cable application. But, before proceeding, I would like to clarify a few points:

1. What is the gauge of a mouse cable (Is it around 30+) ?
2. What is the main conductor element made up of and its purity ? What about the resistance and other parameters ?
3. What is the insulator made of (Teflon or something similar) ?

Best regards,
Bins.
 
Hi Guys
talking in home make tonearm cable, I didin in different way, and don't cost much money too. I use Belden silver coated hook up wire 24 awg (7x32 stranded) cut the length 10% longer than the cable you want to make, similar item from other brand's make also ok. take the teflon tube off and separate all the conductors (you will have 7 conductors of 32awg) take 4 of them and use fingers and nails to make it straight.hang them up and add some weight at the bottom ends, coat them with clear polyurethane, thin coating with more times is better and make sure coating is around of the wire not half side. after complete dry check with multi meter of the isolation. next step is twisting, but make a small tool first, a piece of card board as show in the picture, drill 4 holes and add a tip indicator in the front centre for moving each twist in same distance. hold one end in the table and hook up with multi meter for checking no shortage in each twisting also with a lightly tension too. after two pair is done twist again with the twisted final wrap the piece up with thin teflon tape which you can buy from pumping supply, before for use it need to break in load the out-put end with a 2K resistor, connect the in-put end to a radio line out,use radio signal 24 hours a day for a week or two will be enough,I did mine in 4 feet long, direct from cart to phono amp's in-put as long as the twist is tie enough there will not pick up hum and no shielding is needed, you will find this project give your system a big jump and only with little money.
happy trying Tony Ma
 

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