Pickup extension wire

[slidefever]

Hello.
I’ve fitted a Sixtus pickup (temporarily) with glue dots to my 1937 Dobro 14 fret for a performance.
Can anyone tell me what wire l need to buy to extend the pickup wire to attach a jacket socket to the strap button on the end of the guitar?
Also, the wire is 3mm thick. What size shrink wrap should l get?
Thanks
Chris
‘I love slide me’

[mitchfit]

needs to be radio frequency shielded or your amp may play local radio stations. or worse still neon light noise:

www.wikiaudio.org/best-guitar-cable/

mitchfit

[pete1951]

Most small diameter screened cable would do . The screening is ‘earthed’ and is the multi stranded wire wrapped round the central core, the screening helps to stop radio and electrical interference. Ideally even the join should be done is such a way to surround the central core, though in practice very short lengths of unscreened ‘core’ will not pickup much noise.
Shrink wrap tubing is a good idea as it strengthens the join, it just need so slide over the join, so size will depend on how small your join it.

Pete

[Stevie]

Twisted pairs are OK too, just open up a telephone / network cable and see, that works well and keeps the four twisted pairs relatively insulated from one another, so it should work fine as a single run. The trick is to keep the differential mode voltages and currents vastly more significant than the common mode. Of course, coaxial achieves that end very well, but then you have to be aware of the potential for the "Pin1 problem" with regard to ground loops. (This refers to the pin 1 in an XLR connector, but the engineering principle is well understood irrespective of terminating connectors and enclosures. Interestingly, the blue chip XLR connector manufacturers have redesigned their product line to correct this issue.) Inappropriately terminated coaxial cable can end up picking up interference on the outside of the screening braid/foil and finding it's way inside at the connector. Sometimes it feels like you just can't win!

Just use coaxial cable! Nominally 1/8" diameter RG174/RG179 or RG316 would do but RG174/9 is probably going to be a bit more flexible due to the PTFE dielectric with RG316. We don't need the low loss and high power specs either, so for this I'd go for RG179 because the 75 ohms impedance should exhibit a little less capacitance over length, and although it probably makes no difference over short runs like this, less capacitance equates to preservation of higher frequencies (and the subtle harmonics that contribute subliminally to *tone*.)

You can find tinier coaxial cables- look inside a laptop or even a mobile 'phone, but they start to get devilishly difficult to strip and solder. Finally, that stiffer RG316 PTFE dielectric has the advantage that it doesn't turn into plastic syrup as soon as you wave a soldering iron at it ...

Well you did ask Chris ;<D

でつ e&oe ...

[Stevie]

Whoops, forgot!

Any size polyolephin tubing that physically clears the cables plus join will do. You can buy 1/2, 1/3 and 1/4 shrinkage heat shrink in order of increasing cost. You can also buy adhesive lined heatshrink. For 3mm cable, that equates to about 10mm circumference, so if you buy the least expensive heat shrink I'd buy something that looks like about 8mm across "in the flat" (which is how it comes). If you have a build up in dimension at the cable joint then apply the same logic snd go for a bit larger. It's a trade off- buy the 1/4 shrinking heat shrink and you can cover more eventualities. I use a hot air gun but it's difficult to control in these applications. I've seen folks use open flame like lighters and even the soldering iron tip. Heat is the magic ingredient.

でつ e&oe ...

[pete1951]

One way of getting suitable wire and saving you the job of soldering the socket is to use an extension cable. This would have a jack on one end and a socket on the other. The socket would go on a clip held in by the strap button screw. You then cut the cable to length and join to the pickup. Remember to slip the shrink wrap on before you solder.
Pete



PS: make sure the lead is a Mono, screened cable, the most common ones will be stereo (probably unscreened ) for headphones

[Pickers Ditch]

That's how I did my 12 string but without the clip (masking tape instead ) - it works well.

[Stevie]

I used a stereo on my MMB because I needed to feed in some DC bias for the internal levalier mic. condenser element. A lot depends upon the other connectors in the chain as in what is plugged into what, although in a music scenario mono should be fine, just as Pete says.

The reason I mention this is because as an example, I have a noise reduction device that insists on 3.5mm stereo connectors for its inputs and outputs, yet when I plug the required stereo lead into one of my mono mixer inputs all hell breaks loose.

でつ e&oe ...