Topic: Great video on soldering XLR's to mic cables

[sanaka]

Video - Check it!

I just built four star quad cables (L-4E5C) the other night, and the excruciating tedium got me thinking I must be doing something (or everything) the hard way. So I went online to see what I could find, which of course I should have done beforehand  This guy has all his moves tuned and streamlined, and is using friendlier cable, but the big fat slap on my forehead thing he doesn't even mention is his stand mounted soldering iron with the solder spool on top.

Look Ma, two hands!

Peace,
Sanaka

[Neilyboy]

Cool video. I never once thought to mount my iron on a stand like that.. duh.. seems like a no brainer.. you gain the use of your other hand.. I like it ill have to rig one of my irons up like this!
Thanks for the vid.
Neil

[phanophish]

very nice.....

[willndmb]

i can't be that easy can it

[beeco]

And I've got this giant pile of fried cables I was going to recycle.  Might actually try to repair them myself now that I've seen the tutorial.  First I gotta build a stand for my iron...  I love that thing - the dude in the video makes it look so darn easy. 

[notlance]

That stand does look nice.  When I'm building cables I just clamp the iron in a vise.  The iron is held horizontally rather than vertically, but it works about the same.  By using a vise I don't have to build a stand or have the stand taking up bench space, and it's easy to remove the iron for other soldering tasks.

[sanaka]

That stand does look nice.  When I'm building cables I just clamp the iron in a vise.  The iron is held horizontally rather than vertically, but it works about the same.  By using a vise I don't have to build a stand or have the stand taking up bench space, and it's easy to remove the iron for other soldering tasks.

No way man, you're lame if you don't have a dedicated stand welded up from 3/4" aluminum plate like the one in the video!

Just kidding, of course I think the one in the vid is serious overkill. Vise is excellent. Next time I have cables to make I may do a plywood stand I can stash away somewhere.

Peace,
Sanaka

[heath]

He's not too shabby, but instead of mounting the iron and moving the item to it, I prefer to use a panavise to hold the cable/connector in place while I manipulate the iron with my hands.  Helps for some of the trickier types of cables that I sometimes make...

[huskerdu]

He's not too shabby, but instead of mounting the iron and moving the item to it, I prefer to use a panavise to hold the cable/connector in place while I manipulate the iron with my hands.  Helps for some of the trickier types of cables that I sometimes make...

Much better. I do high reliability soldering for spaceflight applications, and we'd never have the items we're soldering in motion. The idea is to have the cup and the wire stable when soldering. A solder joint that looks fine externally can be fractured internally.

[sanaka]

Much better. I do high reliability soldering for spaceflight applications, and we'd never have the items we're soldering in motion. The idea is to have the cup and the wire stable when soldering. A solder joint that looks fine externally can be fractured internally.

Well, the cable asylum crowd notwithstanding, audio cabling doesn't need what aerospace grade solder joints might need. The advantage of the stand mounted iron is that the two pieces to be joined are one in each hand, so that their positions are the most easily manipulated during soldering. I find angling the iron to and fro around a stationary workpiece awkward. Maybe I'll change my mind after trying a stand, but it sure looks good to me in the video.

Peace,
Sanaka

[theslygoose]

I find angling the iron to and fro around a stationary workpiece awkward. Maybe I'll change my mind after trying a stand, but it sure looks good to me in the video.

Does seem efficient for XLR but it would limit you with trickier cables like 1/8" stereo to dual 1/4", etc.  You could definitely pump out a serious amount of XLR with that though.  Interesting idea and would be fantastic if you could unclip (or unhook, etc.) the iron and the use it free-hand really easily.