Wire harness question for Tim??

[Nisso27]

Hey Tim can you guys make the wireharness for a fee? Mine looks horrible and id like to not take the chance and blow my house up. please let me know thanks p.s. would be for a full 8 pack

[tele_player]

A well-built pre-made harness would be a nice option, assemblling the harness is my least favorite part of the job.

[Randyman...]

Check this thread about "Insulation Displacement" molex plugs:

http://seventhcirclestudios.com/SCA/php ... c&start=15

You can make a whole 9-node harness in under 20 minutes with those connectors! I did

[dkatz42]

Make sure you get the right gauge wire for those connectors however; too small and the contact is poor; too large and the conductors will be damaged. I forget the gauge called for, but it's in the spec for the parts.

[agauchede]

It's funny - I found the wire harness to be the most difficult task encountered in the entire kit. well. . . that and tapping the connectors.

chris

[craigmorris74]

It's funny - I found the wire harness to be the most difficult task encountered in the entire kit. well. . . that and tapping the connectors.

Do you have a tap? I tried to tap the connectors with the screws themselves and it was miserable. A 2 or 3 dollar tap made it painless.

[dkatz42]

Do you have a tap? I tried to tap the connectors with the screws themselves and it was miserable. A 2 or 3 dollar tap made it painless.

I kept breaking taps off until I figured out to pull the ground contact out of the female XLR connector with a pliers before tapping (it snags the races on the tap when you try to back it out.) Then put the connector back in and tap it with the self-tapping screw when you put it in the chassis.

[agauchede]

Thanks for the suggestion! I kept telling myself I would get a tap - and then not do it. I broke a screw trying to tap a connector (still pretty solid - oh well)

Chris

[Category 5]

I did not have to remove the ground tab. I cut it with the tap at the same time. A tip, when tapping a hole you should work in a series of both forward and backout out motions. A quarter to half turn in, then back out. Repeat this until you get all the way in. It is toomuch to ask of the tap to continuously cut threads without backout out and shedding the cut material.

Also, watch out for heat. It isn't so bad in this case, but sometimes a tap can create pretty high temperatures which increase the chance of project or tool failure!

[Ken Schumacher]

A questi0n for folks doing the Molex power harness part swap. Can the wire that comes with the Chassis be used with these Molex connectors?

Mouser 640600-6 connector
Mouser 643071-6 strain relief

If not, what wire should I get? The spec for the connector says 0.5-0.6 squared (20). However, there are a million variations on cable (stranding, insulation, voltage, etc. etc.) and I'm unable to figure out exactly what type of wire to order for these connectors.

Thanks for any help on this.

Ken Schumacher

[Randyman...]

I know I used 20ga from the local Electronics Shop with my connectors...

[Ken Schumacher]

I got the following parts and they seemed to work.

Mouser 571-6406006
MFG PN 640600-6
FEED THRU WO TAB 6P
AMP MTA .156" Connectors

Mouser 571-16430716
MFG PN 1643071-6
STRAIN RLF COVER 16P
AMP MTA .156" Connectors

The strain relief covers were oversize (16 pin) which I ordered by mistake, I guess. They are plastic so I just cut them down to size.

The clearance of the cables isn't perfect, since they feed down and touch the capacitors on my C84, but I don't think that will be a problem. I used the provided crimp pin connections for the first and last positions so they terminate nicely. The wires from the kit also seemed to work just fine. The SCA parts list says it is 20 gauge.

I didn't buy the press-in tool and just used a small flat blade screwdriver to seat the cables. All the connections ohmed out good.

After doing just two crimp lead connectors I'm glad I went this route. I used needle nose pliers and soldered every single one just to make sure.