Soldering flexible cord (headphones)

Am 12.01.2013 17:06, schrieb Rick Hughes: [soldering problem]

Just an idea (may be a bad one): Try to burn off the insulation with a pencil torch or even (if not at hand) a lighter. May work, if the insulation is cotton-based.

Hope you understand, what i'm trying to say.

BZW: I apologize for my bad English. I am a Kraut. Greetings Matthias

These cables can sometimes be a bundle of thin enamelled copper wires, with the varnish in different colours for identification. The idea is to give a thin flexible cable that survives bending well. It's often used in RF applications (Litz wire) as it has good high frequency characteristics, although this will be of rather less impotance at audio frequencies.

Charles F

It's tinsel wire and is very difficult to deal with. What I do is to try to tin it with the iron anf hopefully melt the insulation, then find the finest strand of copper wire you can get your hands on and wind it around the end then apply a little mote solder on order to make a sort of bootlace ferrule.

A delicate touch is required. A sharp modeling knife/scalpel would help.

Herzlichen Dank mein Herr

That what is appears to be ...

I have a micro gas burner I'll try that

There are a mass of wires in each core ... as I try to scrape they just all come open and stand a real risk of shorting.

Wonder how they manage during manufacture

worse sometimnes it 'tinsel' which is wires interspersed with fibres good for flexcibility: almost impossible to solder at all

crimping or a solder pot

Oh, I remember that. Winding IF transformers...

Early telephone switchboard cords had to be highly flexible and durable. They consisted of very fine strands of tinsel (cadmium copper or bronze) spun around mercerised cotton. It was then served with layers of silk or rayon, then covered with soft cotton braiding. The only practicable way of terminating these reliably was binding the end with fine tinned copper wire formed into a loop, virtually crimping it, to attach to the screw connectors of a "jack plug", or crimping on a spade connector for the fixed end of the cord.

Later cords used tiny crimped brass eyelets at the plug end.

Certainly solder didn't come into it at all :-)

Obviously all three conductors of the cord were then lapped in soft cotton and finished with a layer of glazed cotton of the correct colour.

It all kept the cotton industry going!

In message , Matthias Czech writes

Winkelschleifer !

;-) There are three things in this world that you need: Duct tape, WD-40 and Beer. Duct tape for things that move and aren't supposed to. WD-40 for things that don't move and are supposed to. And Beer if it doesn't fit into the first two categories.

One wall free

But as it stands it is insulated ... if you crimp on it, there would not be a good connection .. they must treat the ends somehow ... and in this instance they were soldered at the plug.

Normally crimped.

It's a standing joke here that you need a Winkelschleifer for almost anything.

Andy