It's a pity Confucius didn't do electronics

[major_clanger]

...because he might have come up with some useful aphorism such as "Pride in fiddly soldering of wires onto mini-DIN connector will be exceeded only by embarrassment in realisation that connector backshell was not slipped onto cable first."

It's not as if I could even slip it on from the other end, as I'd done that one - remembering to put the backshell on the cable first - earlier.

If you're wondering why I'm mucking around assembling cables it's because I want a longer extension cord for my camera flash. Off-camera flash can be a very useful lighting technique, but with modern flash guns it requires a proper data link between camera and flash unit. Canon sell a wireless link (painfully expensive) or extension cords (merely expensive). However, my extension cord is only 60cm long, even stretched, and I'd like a rather longer one.

I'm not alone in this, and several people have cut the cord in two and added sockets for an extension lead. This requires a cable which is reasonably light and flexible with at least five connectors - I've used extra-flex Cat 5e, which is what ethernet patch cords are made from. I also wanted a rather more professional-looking job than the one at that link, hence making proper terminations rather than just taping cut-off plugs and sockets onto the ends. I also decided to make the lead myself, partly because I couldn't readily find any PS/2 keyboard extension cords and partly because if I was going to be soldering mini-DIN connectors only multi-core cables I wanted to practice on something that wasn't a £30 specialist lead.

Anyway, I now have my own 6-way mini-DIN to mini-DIN cable, 3m long, and a check with a multimeter indicates that it works and I've even connected the right wires to the right pins so as not to make an inadvertent crossover lead. Next: take the wire-cutters to EXPENSIVE LEAD and add matching connecters to it too. However, I might invest in something like this or this as even my supposedly very good eyesight has its limits, and soldering fine wires onto 0.5mm pins spaced 2mm apart rather exposes them. For that matter, one of these (which tend to include magnifiers) would also be a good idea. I can see that I'm going to spend more on tools for this project than I'd have spent buying a longer flash lead, but they'll be useful for some other work I have in mind...

Comments

[perlmonger.livejournal.com]

We've just bought one of these - seems excellent as long as you have somewhere useful to clamp it. I've also got one of those third hand jobbies, but with my deficient eyesight it tends to be more annoying than useful - the lens is too small to do anything much in a binocular way.

[non-trivial.livejournal.com]

This mysterious other project wouldn't happen to be in 1/48th scale would it...?

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Could be... :-)