Guitar Lead Soldering question

BilliBob

Hi Guys,
making a bunch of mic cables and guitar cables.
My question is regarding the sheilding.
I somewhere heard something about not soldering both ends of the sheilding, solder 1 end and leave the other.
This is not what we are "supposed" to do, but just wondering if anyone has any direct experience of this issue and any advice on which way to go.
thanks

steamabacus

This is normally done when trying to fix 'ground loop' hum issues.

For normal usage, solder the screen at both ends.

BilliBob

Thanks so much

ecc83

If you are making up quite a few leads it is useful to make some "specials"

One guitar TS jack, with as you say, the shield dissed one end can be handy if you want to link two pieces of earthed gear such as two amps or an amp and a PC system....But FFS label it!

The same goes for XLR-XLR mic leads but in this case you can just make up a "slug" about 300mm long to insert wherever needed. This would have pin 1 unconnected. Another 300mm slug might have pins 2 and 3 crossed one end to server as a phase reverser.

If you want to get REALLY into things! Make up some gender changers as well.

Sometimes the loss of earth one end results in Radio Frequency Interference. This can usually be stopped by fitting a capacitor, about 1nF from shield to sleeve/pin 1.

Dave.