Useful wiring tip

[madswitcher]

If you haven't come across this on, its quite a useful tip when soldering up several connectors, particularly the likes of XLRs  and multi-plole Paintons which I've been doing a lot of recently

Suppose you are soldering  a lot of cable mounted XLR males, also buy a chassis mount female or use a gash one from an old job which you then put in a bench vice at your workstation. 

Plug your -to-be soldered and stripped down male into the female in the vice and solder away.  If your iron gets too hot and starts to melt the plastic of the plug the female will keep the pins in alignment when it goes cold.  Also when finished, just unplug the male and plus the next one in - no fiddling about.

Mike

 

[ruffrecords]

Nice one.

Ian

 

[panman]

Yes,  a good one. Why did I never get that idea? Ok, I mainly use Neutriks and they have not melted so far, but the cheaper ones sometimes do.

 

[Tubetec]

Handy tip alright ,bit like having a third hand .
especially useful if a persons new to soldering and tends to dwell a bit longer, or as mentioned about budget XLR's which turn to chewing gum when heated .

A buddy dropped me off the guts of an old cordovox accordian recently , the oscillator section ,theres over 60 tubes in it ,miles of really nice insulated shiny tinned colour coded wire ,this stuff is hard to beat for point to point wiring and solders beautifully, dozens of sprague black beauty caps, small tag boards and plasticised cloth wire insulation, a veritable treasure chest of handy bits and bobs for my purposes. Not really sure if I can find a use for all the 6x8's , but a handfull of 12ax7 and 12au7's which will come in useful.

 

[Whoops]

I remember seeing some years ago a photo of a soldering helper for connectors, i think it was a block of wood with male and female connector if the various types attached. It had XLR, Jack , RCA

I cant find the photo now, but it was a great idea and I would like to build one for myself.
You can use cheaper connectors for the tool

If anyone ever finds the picture of this tool on the web pleade le me know

 

[Gold]

I do that with D-Subs.  Especially if I'm repairing a broken wire with the connector already in place. They are cheap and it doesn't take much heat to melt the plastic.