[mythtv-users] Off topic - can someone identify this connector please, I think it's US standard.

[Nick Morrott]

On 18 March 2011 12:08, Raymond Wagner <raymond at wagnerrp.com> wrote:
> On 3/18/2011 07:17, Andre wrote:
>> On 18 Mar 2011, at 07:48, Simon Hobson wrote:
>>> Jean-Yves Avenard wrote:
>>>> And I've crimped heaps of those lately :)
>>> What's the secret ?
>> There is a trick, with all crimps.
>>
>> You need to remove the insulation for the length of the ferrule (bit you crimp) and with some nasty F's they use the center as the pin, so you need to strip the dielectric too for those although that ends up being lower loss than a proper pin. So you need to strip back insulation, screen, foil and dielectric (plastic insulator) for the pin, it's best to strip back lots more than you need and trim the pin after. Don't nick the center, if you do, start again, use a sharp scalpel, those automatic strippers are hopeless, you can cut almost all the way through the plastic and the last bit will break away cleanly with good cable.
>
> What?  I had a cheap little $5 stripper from radio shack that worked
> absolute wonders.  Just a plastic, spring loaded clamp with a razor
> blade and two different sized notches.  Hold the end of the cable up.
> Clamp the cable half an inch from the end on the first notch, twirl a
> few turns with a finger, and the conductor is exposed.  Use the second
> notch a quarter inch back, and you trim the sheath and armor, leaving
> the dielectric and foil.  Twist a connector on, crimp, done.

A few years ago when I put CT100 in all the walls to the loft I first
looked into using crimpable connectors but in the end used twist-on F
connectors. The tool I used had two parallel razor blades with
adjustable height offsets - the first set to cut through everything
leaving the copper core exposed, and the second cutting through the
sheath to leave the foam dielectric. Twist on a connector and the job
was done in about 15s. Not encountered any problems to date), and I
use the system with DVB-T and DVB-S.

I don't do this for a living and it's questionable whether the tool
will see any real use in the future, now that everything is done, but
I felt I certainly got my money's worth at the time and don't
experience any signal issues (although we have a 25x power output
increase on the local transmitter when we switchover to digital in
September, so I may need to attenuate it then if it's too strong).
YMMV.

> I doubt it would take me much more than 20 seconds to make one.  The
> problem was that a razor blade cutting on metal braiding doesn't survive
> long, and that tool relied on exact sizing of the notches, so it doesn't
> work so well after being resharpened.  I got maybe 50 crimps out of it
> before it stopped being functional.  If I had to make many coaxial
> cables, I'd go back and buy a box of those things.

I'm probably at about 50, but the blades still seem sharp enough to
make up the odd patch lead from time to time. I'd better sign off now
before admitting I also have an Atom-based frontend :)

Cheers,
Nick

-- 
Nick Morrott

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