Shielded wire question

[Rick RV-4]

As I start planning my wiring "mess", I see there will be a few occasions where I'll have to join the shield of a wire and connect it to something else. For example, my XCOM wiring harness has a shielded wire where you must join the shielded portion of the wire to another wire to complete a circuit (in this case it is for a "push to talk" ground return circuit off my infinity stick grip).

What is the best way to take the "shield" portion and terminate it into a connector? I played around with a spare piece of shielded wire the other day, and got nothing but a mess when I tried to turn the shield braid into something I could use to terminate in a connector. I was able to strip the outside insulation to get a nice braid left on the wire, but where do you go from there? Every time I tried to get the braided shielded portion off the smaller wire it either bunched up or crumbled. I'm tempted to spiral the other wire (from the stick grip) around the exposed braided portion and then just heatshrink the bad boy up and go from there. Sounds a little cheesy but nothing else seems to work.

Any suggestions?

[TylerB]

Originally Posted by Rick RV-4

As I start planning my wiring "mess", I see there will be a few occasions where I'll have to join the shield of a wire and connect it to something else. For example, my XCOM wiring harness has a shielded wire where you must join the shielded portion of the wire to another wire to complete a circuit (in this case it is for a "push to talk" ground return circuit off my infinity stick grip).

What is the best way to take the "shield" portion and terminate it into a connector? I played around with a spare piece of shielded wire the other day, and got nothing but a mess when I tried to turn the shield braid into something I could use to terminate in a connector. I was able to strip the outside insulation to get a nice braid left on the wire, but where do you go from there? Every time I tried to get the braided shielded portion off the smaller wire it either bunched up or crumbled. I'm tempted to spiral the other wire (from the stick grip) around the exposed braided portion and then just heatshrink the bad boy up and go from there. Sounds a little cheesy but nothing else seems to work.

Any suggestions?

The easy way is to strip the outer insulation off just a little longer than you need for the center conductor then..push the braid down just a little so that it bunches or blooms out right down near the outer insulation. Then using a fine tipped small screw driver or a small "pick" spread the braid out just a little in the bunch ( bloom) area making a "rabbit hole" Then reach thru the rabbit hole with small needlenose pliers to grasp the center wire to start to pul it thru the rabbit hole. Once you get the center conductor pulled out a little you can pull the entire end of the center conductor thru the rabbit hole. Now just pull the braid back tight, flatten, and then tin it with solder. now you can use it as a regular pieces of wire. You can put some small heatshrink on iot to insulate it.

Tyler Bryant N174MT
RV7A just out of the paint shop

[az_gila]

Tyler's method is illustrated here...

http://www.mcp.com.au/xcom760/education/education.html

...and gives a nice, clean looking joint. I personally don't like to use a long length of the shield as a "wire', but others use this technique...

The slick - and more $$$ - method is to use solder sleeves...



http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalo...ldersleeve.php

gil in Tucson

[Rick RV-4]

Thanks guys . . . very helpful as usual!