Well, I have a hacked up harness I am trying to use. I noticed one of the wires was thicker than the others and had three wires inside, so i stripped the insulation off of it.



Can I still use this? The shielding goes from around the ECU to the shock tower connection, but on the hacked one I am trying to use its cut about 15 inches prior to where the shock tower connection is.

How do I maintain the shelding in the wire, while connecting it to its other half?

Thanks!

 

so the shield is too short?

 

Well... I need to reconnect two sheilded cables, so I cant quite extend the sheild over the areas where I solder the wires. Could I just strip the sheild off, solder the cable together (meaning the 3 wires inside to the other half's 3 wires), make my own sheilding somehow and shrink wrap it up?

 

So your saying the 2 shields don't meet. 1's too short? The reason that shield is there is stop electronic noise from being induced into the wires. Is there any way you could rewire it? What exactly is this for?

 

Find an electronics/wire supplier.

Buy wire. 3 conductor shielded. Should be inexpensive.

Splice/solder/shrink.

Done.

 

The best way would be the above suggestion.

Next would be to do your 3 conductor splicing, but to slip 20 inches of braid over one of the wires first. Braid is available separately, but might be hard for you to find. Complete the splice, shrink wrap splices, slip braid down over the 15 inches of uncovered wire, a little solder on the ends of the braid for connection, then shrink wrap the whole thing.

Final solution would be splice the three conductors, and shrink wrap those splices. Now solder a bare conductor from braid to braid over the 15 inch gap, now take a very long strip of tinfoil that you have cut to 3/4 inch width and wrap it over the ends of the braid and along the 15 inches that is uncovered. Now shrinkwrap or tape over that.

 

how critical is it that the sheilding actually gets soldered to each other rather than just layed on top? Does it carry a current?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by B18EG6 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">how critical is it that the sheilding actually gets soldered to each other rather than just layed on top? Does it carry a current?</TD></TR></TABLE>


the point is to complete the electrical connection. If you just lay it on top you can't guarantee a good connection all the time. Yes it can carry extraneous currents. High Frequency stuff to be exact.

 

oh so the actual sheilding carries a current? I know i hafta get a good connection between the three conductors within the sheilding, just didnt know about the sheilding itself

 

Shielding is always a judgment call, unless you have a $5M EMI/RFI lab at your disposal.

So to narrow down the probability of failure, is why I thought it wise to solder a bare conductor, say something around #20 or #22 between the two shields. That will carry any DC ish currents and provide a bit of inherent shielding. The tinfoil tape will provide the high frequency shield. The problem is sort of, to the first order related to the inches of wire uncovered/inches covered. However if you break the DC path you amplify the problem. To you guys in the know, its an impediance or Z mismatch that really causes the problem.

 

better than i could do

 

ok, heres where im at. I got the three conductors in the middle soldered up nice, barely any overlap and when i yanked on em they didnt pull apart.

heres the sheilding, did i do a good job?

 

Thats the spirit of yankee ingenuity! For the materials that you had on hand it is a good attempt. I would say with around 70% confidence that you will be able to get by. Looks like about 70% coverage of the open area, whereas the original was perhaps 95%. That ought to get you within the production margins. Good luck with it!

 

The back doesnt look as nice as that part

Should I retry it? How vital is it that the conductors inside DONT overlap when I solder them together? A friend of mine told me to try and avoid overlapping them, and suggested a butt solder kinda deal.

Also - Like you suggested, maybe I could go find some sheilding somewhere that would produce a better coverage than my attempt at using the stuff already in there. Can I just use some uninsulated wire and wrap it around?

I want to make sure I did this correctly

 

You seem like a nice guy trying to learn and do a good job, so I took the time to do a little tutorial in pictures to help you. I made a mock harness and showed you how I would splice it. I put all the explanation in the pix. If you have any further questions ask away.

If you want IM me your mailing address, and I will mail you that loop of braid that is shown in the last picture if it will help you.

 

Thanks a million for that, I cant tell you how much that helps!

How important is it that you use rosin core? I think I might redo what I did, Id rather be safe than sorry.

Where did you buy your braid from? I need to invest in about ~10 ft to extend some of my wires, will this be detrimental to the signal by adding the extra length? Im not 100% sure of what the wires carry but I do know they go to the distributor.

I would bug my buddies at work but school started and I dont work there anymore, although this would be a good reason to go visit Also, I checked out the link you provided, VERY nice stuff there! I actually worked with one of these, and I sure do miss it compater to my iron at home

http://www.wassco.com/hak703rewsys.html

Thanks again BigMoose!!!

 

The braid is off a hunk of coax cable that I had around RG59 I think... Cable TV stuff. So if you need a bunch, maybe just buy a 10 or 25 foot length of CATV wire and take an Xacto knife to it. You can slide it off by pushing. If you pull it, it will chinese finger and tighten on the core. Push a little and it gets larger in diameter and slides right off.

The deal with rosin core is it is non corrosive after you are done with the joint. The rosin does not continue to corrode the copper. Ever look at your copper plumbing pipes if the plumber didn't wipe the flux down well after he was done? The green corrosion occurrs in a year or two. If you use acid core, it tends to go after the copper with age and will actually eat thru it, particularly if there is moisture around.

If you just need a little bit, Radio Shack will have rosin core solder.

Glad to help. Good luck! I enjoy helping you guys that are trying hard...