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Cable rounding

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BrainLifter

BrainLifter

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I know from being in comm that changing the way a cable is setup kills the cable.... so how do I round my IDE & power cables without the loss

oh yea... and has anybody spliced the little three wire for cd audio from the ROM sound card... I need to hook two of those cables together for one sound card like this:

Code: 
CD-ROM-----\
           |-----Sound card
CD-ROM-----/

...but I have no idea how to do it

Thanks
 
this may be a little out of the norm...but I fold my cables. I fold them once down the length, then again down the length, then I tape them up. They are still flexible, but instead of being round, they come out flat...about 1/2 inch in width. It is easy to do, and takes about 2 minutes...and doesn't stress the cable or damage it in any way...
 
I was always wary about cutting mine, because of the chance I stood of stripping some insulation from one of the wires...so I took to folding them as an alternative...not as pretty, but it does the trick, and I can untape them and flatten them back out if I ever need to...
 
I've cut up my cables (every 4th wire or so) and they're working fine (make sure that you don't expose any copper, if so put some tape around it).

There are 2 ways to connect 2 (or more) CD-Roms to your soundcard, the cheapest and easiest would be a switch (see pic).
The other way would be to build a 4 channel (2x stereo) mini mixer (well sort of cuz you don't need any potentiometers).
The advantage of the mixer is that you can listen to both CD-Roms at the same time.

I don't know what the switch is called in English, but it needs to switch all three wires cuz the ground cable might put out some noise/sound and you could get a ground loop.

Excuse my horrible paint job:p (feel free to ask if you don't understand it)
 
I roll them up, little bits at a time, starting from the center, and working my way out, then I zip tie them so they won't unroll. they are much more compact than premade round cables, and it only takes a couple of minutes to do.
 
I make little 1-inch slits between every 9th or 10th wire with a razorblade (not a shaving one...), and pull gently on it, so the slit sort of glides open perfectly every time. Then, i wrap it in electrical tape about twice around. It makes them about 1cm thick, sorta rectangluar-ish, and somewhat stiff. I like the stiffness though, because it lets me move it into a certain position and it stays like a good little cable:p ! Of course, they're not so still that they don't move when you want them too.

With this technique, i've never ruined an IDE or Floppy cable while rounding! It may use alot of electrical tape comparitively, but it looks very close to professional (IMHO:D ) when done!
 
takiwa said:
this may be a little out of the norm...but I fold my cables. I fold them once down the length, then again down the length, then I tape them up. They are still flexible, but instead of being round, they come out flat...about 1/2 inch in width. It is easy to do, and takes about 2 minutes...and doesn't stress the cable or damage it in any way...
Click to expand...

I did the same thing, except I tie wraped them, then put automotive wire loom wrap around them.
 
when I had my Gateway tower, I wire loomed everything...but the Maxtop I went back to (because of the psu, it wouldn't fit in the Gateway even w/ modding) doesn't have the room...shame to, cause I liked the way the loom looked....
 
I've split my own cables with a razor then slowly ripped them. Be careful if you cut one of the connectors off though. I got extreme hard drive corruption because I was shorting out some of the wires against each other. Never had any problems with the cables themselves causing problems.
 
For the cable rounding, if you are willing to cut your cables, it makes for a more flexible result. Folding is safer, but the things are pretty hard to move around, especially if you have a bunch of them all plugging into one place (ide0, ide1, fdd, raid1, raid2). It can be a pain getting everything seated properly.

As to the dual cd-rom thingy, I have just taken two cd audio cables, cut them in half, and soldered three halves back together. Each of the cables will have three or four wires inside. The good ones have four wires (R channel, R ground, L channel, Lground), and the cheap ones have three wires (R channel, L channel, Ground). Just make sure and connect the individual wires correctly and it should work.

Now, I know that this is not an especially safe practice because the signals from one cd-rom will go into the other and such, but it works, so I'm not complaining. YMMV.
 
rounding your ide cables is not that hard, just get a xacto knife that is really sharp, it you shouldn't have to cut each wire, when i did mine, i cut every 3 wires, and warpped it tightly in elec tape
 
nice job on the cable! hmmmm...would that be the notorious "Corp. Edition" version of XP on your desktop? :D looks alot like my copy...hehehe :p
 
i think I saw one in my driveway, September-ish, 2000, but I couldn't be sure unless you put 'em in a line-up, officer...
 
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