@mani-2 my other power cables are a helix design I got from williewonka (agon name), which I then made from the conductors from the yarbo 9000 series PCs with silver coated copper neutral helix and a thhn wire ground helix, both wrapped around the yarbo conductor. I used sonar quest plugs. So I know how to make a great sounding cable from proper components..
I was curious what a braided architecture made from individually insulated, small diameter solid conductors would sound like. That's why I tried cat 5.
I could do it with proper small diameter power cable.. |
I actually thought about the insulation temp.. I purposely used plenum rated cable, which has Teflon insulation instead of PVC...
Do you think an insurance company would look more kindly upon diy cables of a different variety? I'd imagine they'd poo poo any diy cable.. But I'm not sure. |
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@tablejockey that's gotta be the dodgiest looking cable I've ever seen. |
@terry9 the cable is well terminated. I stripped the individual wires and crimped spades at the end of each bundle. I then put heat shrink up over any bit of exposed metal, other than the spade. These babies are solidly terminated.
As for the Teflon melting, that will obviously not be a problem with all the conductors functioning, which they will be.
Great points, though.
So far, I've not really heard any valid reasons backed by theory, other than @erik_squires suggestion that the insulation may not be up to the task.. |
You guys are great. Truly. Erik, I appreciate your no BS attitude. I’m curious, though, why other diy power cable threads haven’t gotten this rawkus. Is it the cat5e cable, or my edgy headline? Because I’ve made other power cables and mentioned it in other threads, as have others, and this is the first talk I’ve heard of houses burning down and liability and such. I do realize I started the house burning down talk.. :-)
I did just find, buried in the NEC, that UL listed communications cables are rated to, at minimum, 300v. 24awg solid copper can handle .6 amps. I have 24 strands per conductor. As long as I terminated everything well, in terms of electrical theory, is there a safety problem? That’s my real question. Not liability. I understand that part.. |
So far, they run completely cool..
@pbnaudio those (home depot) are the very cords I used when I first made my own cords a year and a half ago. All the other cords I've made since then have sounded better. But your signalcables link got me curious, so I may buy one, just to compare.
@steakster @joeylawn36111 I'll check those specs later. Good point about twisted pairs not being able to radiate heat as well as an individual strands. Still, I've played the stereo loudly and none of my diy PCs run even remotely warm. Including the cat 5 one.
@ericsch thanks for the clarification. I guess if insurance companies could get out of paying claims due to stupidity, they probably wouldn't pay many claims at all.. |
I’m not dead yet.. ;-)
Wiliewonka - cat 5 plenum cable insulation is Teflon and is good to 200* C. Cat 5 is also rated to 300v. Not 600, but well above 120. |
@williewonka I've already got two of your helix design power cords hooked up to my monoblocks. I ended up using the yarbo 9000 series cable from vt4c as the donor cable for the main conductor. They sound great. |
The actual insulation around the wire itself is Teflon... I think the blue outer sleeve is PVC.
@jea48 that was a beautiful post. Points taken. I have the twisted pairs still in the blue outer sleeve and all 4 twisted pairs are used in parallel, I’m not running hot and neutral or ground in the same blue outer sleeve. The three lengths of cat5 for ground are all still in their outer sleeve, then braided. Likewise for live and neutral. It’s rather rugged. There’s no chance they’ll short.. The only thing I could see happen would be if it was flexed a lot and very acutely. Then, if a few wires broke, the remaining wires on that pole could get hot and cause problems.
That said, this was just meant to be an experiment to see what I think about multiple solid gauge conductors, separately insulated and braided together to form larger conductors. I’ll probably do something similar out of 20 or 18 gauge 600v wire. Any recommendations? OCC or the like would be nice. |
I promise, if you do the research you can confirm, cat 5 that is UL listed is rated to 300v |
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@williewonka I was using them with a dared mc 7p pre and a class D crown xls1500. Now they're powering 2 Ghent audio 500w class D monoblocks. I find with class D that the heavier gauge conductor makes a big difference in sonic performance, especially bass control. The helix cables I made have 10 gauge main conductors.. |
Also, thanks for the how to! |
I have been. But it has been a good discussion and it's very interesting, the reactions I got. I keep responding with info to make this thread more useful to someone in the future. I learned a lot from threads like this.. |
@jea48 I’ll join you in not recommending anyone use bundled cat 5 cables as PCs. I’m happy with with them, but am aware of their possible safety issues and have taken steps to mitigate them. Despite that, this isn’t a cord that can take the abuse a regular PC can.
@williewonka I can’t say my xls ran any cooler because it’s class D. It ran so cool, the fan hardly ever kicked on, even with the stock cord and it was never even remotely warm in any place I could touch. I saw a post in the tech talk section that made me think of you though. It was a PDF talking about power distortion in an industrial setting and how to mitigate it. One thing it mentioned was that, for industrial switch mode power supplies, having the neutral conductor at least 1.7 times the size of the hot conductor reduced the noise dramatically. Your helix design has the neutral conductor twice as big as the hot, as I’m sure you know..
Not sure if industrial switching power supplies behave like home audio, but interesting none the less. |
