Tag Archives: rubbish

Cables. I hate (cheap) cables.

Firstly I’d just like to point out that I have no idea if the problem with the wires was caused by me soldering them, or just cheap shonky wire. The wire was breaking down a good 6 inches from where I had soldered them.

This was a set of audio cables to convert Nissan Micra to ISO plugs. Because of the restricted room behind my double-DIN head unit I unclipped the pins from the ISO connectors and connected them to the head unit harness wires with solder and heatshrink.

While I was soldering one wire I noticed that it just came away from the pin with next to no tugging or wiggling. When I tried to strip the insulation back the wire was very brittle and powdery and just seemed to crumble. I replaced this wire with some from an old Skyline engine wiring loom and that was fine.

I put the harness in the vehicle tonight and found I was only getting audio from the right channel. That’s odd, and annoying. I immediately thought of the dodgy wire and wondered if there might be more. I got my meter out and started testing continuity…to find four wires with no connection.

Each wire I replaced was all powdery and was breaking up. The harness that came with the head unit was perfect with clean bright copper wire. The dodgy wires weren’t even copper colour.

Here’s the item. I strongly suggest avoiding this one.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000XUUNJA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

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