well hey guys zahkman here and today i want to show you how to solder XLR
connections using Neutrik connectors my name is Isaac I'm a audio tech at a
church and I want to show you the church audio life so I'm going to make videos
as I have time and if you're a church audio tech you'll understand that and I
also want to make videos as I have projects to do to both lead to save the
work and to kind of double double team time there so today I have to solder
some cables to install on a rackmount mixer for our new production room that
we're setting up and I thought I would just show you guys how I'm gonna do that
so first I want to talk through the different things you will need they are
all shown here first of all you need a decent soldering iron with a fairly
narrow tip you'll need rosin core solder some kind of clamp is always good
needle nose pliers are always handy some kind of small cutters jacket removers
are very handy and wire strippers are essential and then of course you're a
nutri connector now we use nutria connectors because they just seem to be
the absolute best as far as we've experienced they have the simplest
operation but they also have some of the sturdiest connection and they make your
work more efficient but also they last quite a long time they probably are
touch more expensive than other connectors but they're well worth the
money so we will always use our nutria connectors 11 alright so I got this
cable here that needs a male XLR connection and that's what I'm going to
do here today so obvious first thing to do is open up the package of the Neutrik
bag and they come with four distinct parts there's always the boot strain
relief the actual connector piece and then the steel Jack portion mushroom
shirt that's exactly called but anyway the outside and these parts come with a
bag and the way they these are created like I said compared to
the company's really I think work the best so first thing you always want to
do and this is something that can burn you if you don't do it is put the boot
on first if you forget to do this you have to then unsolder it and go back and
do this right but before I do anything else I would stick the boot on and the
strain relief actually has a cut out so it could be done after the fact but just
for my own sake I put that on now so I don't forget there we go
I always then stick my connector piece into the jack so it's ready to go sr
into the clamp so it's ready to go and
then I'm ready to begin so first thing you got to do is expose the wires inside
the cable so that's the word I said the still jacket stripper comes in handy
these can be bought fairly easily on Amazon or be an age baby shop that's
also where you can buy the new trick and some I've bought the mostly at B&H photo
they seem to be the cheapest price but av shop that CA works as well or Amazon
and these cuffs will come with sometimes network connecting kits but they're just
as nice simple way to get to jacket off and so you want to leave some people
have said basically a thumbnails length of wire on the end and these are I can
tell already a bit uneven so they have to be trimmed anyway you don't want too
much length they don't fit in the connector very well and they get more
prone to problems but too short is gonna be hard to work with so this kind of is
a bit of a feel so somewhere I figure right around your thumbnail length which
is what I'm in three quarters of an inch maybe yeah use the jacket stripper to
try to get around that much off do only one turn around if you - menu I cut
right into the wire sandy that you don't want that pulled up Jack it off just
toss that to the side and the kind of cable I'm using has a little bit of
twine inside that was used to probably in the manufacturing process so to snip
that right off go these also have a bit of a foil so I
separate out the ground wires and I bring out the foil
sometimes as foil will need to be trimmed with the snips but sometimes
comes off by hand and a bit more of that twines let me just get rid of that
carefully go so if you're soldering XLR or microphone cable there's always going
to be three wires this is how they create a balanced connection you're
always going to have a hot a cold and a ground and these are what you're going
to solder two pins one two and three with pin one being the ground pin two is
gonna be white positive pin three is going to be black or negative so I got
this state this is um ready to have the cable stripped some people would even do
these a touch shorter or touch longer somewhere in this ballpark of length is
going to be good but one thing I mentioned earlier is that the the ground
is a little shorter than rest I'm actually the trim goes to be a bit more
even and this isn't rocket surgery these are not to be exactly perfectly precise
but somewhere in this general ballpark is gonna work really well for you okay
then this is where we use the wire strippers and these can also be
purchased online and hardware stores as well this I know is a 20 gauge wire so
let's find the 20 gauge hole pop that in there strip that back and you want to
leave about this much in here basically wanting to fit into the boot of the
connector without having any extra I want that rubber to go right up to the
boot of that connector to prevent anything from wires from crossing each
other at all so that's about the right amount do the same thing on this next
one
that one's a little short let me try that one more time
you strip back just a little bit more
there we go okay so all I want to do next is called tinning these wires and
basically what that means is getting some solder to absorb into the stranded
wires of these wires and there's a fairly simple process to do that
essentially hold your soldering iron against them and push solder into them
but one thing to note is that's the solder itself helped to transfer heat so
for these cables you could try stick these into a clamp if you want but I've
gotten comfortable with this enough or I can just just Restless in such a way
over so it's not going to move too much take the soldering iron and I'll dab
just a little bit of solder on the end of this here just make sure it's got
some and I'll transfer the heat and a nice butt should hold this against the
end and push the solder into it and you'll see the solder it literally suck
into those those wires you only doesn't take long at all if you do this right
soon and they don't need to be gloopy and they need to have just enough so
that they're there together this also will make sure they don't come apart on
you as you saw her and that works out very well so now that we got the wires
tin we want to also tin the connector on the Neutrik connector and basically they
have three cups that you can fill with solder one thing I was taught here and
I've seen this differently online but is actually you want to make a hot solder
not a cold solder and what this means is this the method I was taught was that
you actually heat up the cup itself and have the heated up cup melt the solder
instead of just noting this soldered directly into the cup I think what
happens is sometimes you just you're pouring basically hot solder into a cold
cup and sometimes that doesn't actually connect the way it should it really bind
the way it should but if the cup is hot it always it always will so then when I
was taught was again add a little bit of solder I'll clean this off it's a bit
dirty add a little bit of solder on to the tip
and then what I was told to do was and I think this works the best Ness of what I
recommend to everybody else is hold this in them under the cup causing the cup to
get hot then you put the solder on the top and put it into it and then it melts
into it and you get a good amount of soldering then basically fill the cup
right up don't be stingy with your solder and I would just keep your penis
process for all three cups to hold it on the bottom put the solder in
now those are filled up next thing to do is relatively simple just have to now
connect the wires into those cups and by melting them together again now this
isn't where it's important to make sure you get everything in the right order
and if you take a close look at these cups you'll see that it's pin 1 pin 2
and pin 3 and one again is always gonna be ground 2 is always hot a positive and
three is always negative or cold and what you want to do then is take your
wires and get them in the right order now actually I should have checked that
before I did this I basically flipped around so I would do is I just flip
these wires around and then one important little tip is trying to get
these bent so that they are more naturally already kind of have some
tension going the way you want them to go and this will make your life a lot
easier as you'll see in a second why so next thing to do is just simply melt the
bottom put this in and so they all melt together again you have a hot spot or
not a cold solder and then that should be good to go so again I am right-handed
so I will always go from left to right that way you're not as much chance of
melting your cable or hitting something or even hitting your fingers so if
you're if you're left-handed you may do the exact opposite but basically the
stuff you want to keep it the most out of your way as possible so you're less
chance of burning yourself or melting a cable so this is how that goes
yep shall hold in place till the Sauter ree-ree cools you spin that to use it
and you can use this to tension here to get stuff from the right place twist
that around and then I'll get underneath again go and then one last time and
sometimes you can get to read bend this just a little bit to get it into place
there we go and hold underneath
you know in this case I need a bit more solder on the bottom as it's not
transferring the heat and I thought there was still something there there we
go boom in the bottom and in back in business it should go really fast now
there we go beautiful so that's one of those things that'll make you a lot
faster at this he goes make sure there's some solder on the tip of your soldering
iron or already underneath to the bottom of that cup it'll melt faster I'll go
together so that is effectively now soldered you just take it out of the
clamp pull it out and then reassemble it and the next step is fairly simple you
just take the strain relief and they actually have a nice way of fitting into
the sides they are not sure if that's super clear there we go and then taking
the metal the outside jacket pushing that in with the Neutrik label always on
top then you push this up and screw it together there you have your completed
end it's together looks good super solid it's got built-in strain relief and this
will be a long lasting connection that last you a long time providing you
solder to cleanly alright hope that helped you and also I wanted to note
that normally in this case if you were doing this a regular cable you would now
do the female end in this case this is an installation where all I need is the
male end so this is exactly the same process the only difference is that your
pin numbers would now be flipped around so pin 1 and 2 would be on the opposite
sides because now what's going in the other direction so it's be careful about
that otherwise it's the exact same procedure and you can now solder cables
for all kinds of installations you can make adaptors so I think this is a very
handy skill to have and I really hope that helped you in your in your church
all your life or whatever life you live I so I actually really enjoy soldering I
think it's one of the fun kind of meditative things you can do and I hope
that you will enjoy it the same way well if you like this video I hope you will
press the like button or subscribe to my channel I'm going to make more videos
like this but also videos of like real life reviews gear that I've actually
used in my life as a church audio tech and I'll give you kind of the good the
bad and the ugly on uncensored and now I help you in your purchasing
decisions so hope you enjoyed that thanks for watching
God bless