Soldering Litz wire? - Actually Tinsel wire

[derek.ireland]

Any tips please as to the best way to solder headphone's litz wire to 1/4 jack plug.

Thanks.

[stableblock]

Remove any outer insulation. Carefully untwist the end. Dip end in meths or other suitable solvent. You need one that burns cleanly. Set fire to end. When the meths has burnt off carefully clean the carbon of the strands using a cloth dampened with meths. Twist the cleaned strands together and solder as normal.

It's years since I've seen Litz wire, good luck.

[G6Tanuki]

I've not come across Litz being used for [vintage] headphone-leads; usually it is 'tinsel', a fabric core with copper foil being spirally wound round it; several strands of this are then bundled together to form a single wire.

The usual way to terminate it [as used by the leads provided with WWII headsets and telephone-handsets for the GPO] is with some sort of crimp terminal.

[CambridgeWorks]

Yes, tinsel wire is what I have seen in the past.
For that, I used to get some very fine tinned copper wire and wrap it around the strands after bunching them together. Forming something like a tight coil spring over them. Then solder this "spring" to the connector. Capillary action takes a part in this process. Easier said than done and very fiddly.
This was decades ago when attaching to a 1/4" jack plug.
Rob

[G6Tanuki]

Yes, the wire-wrapping-over-bunched-tinsel is a good technique; in times-past I have used 5 amp tinned-copper fusewire intended for the old style rewireable lighting-fuses to good effect here.

You don't need to solder it, indeed I would say that doing so makes fitment to a screw-terminal likely to be problematic, when in future the solder suffers cold-flow effects and the clamping force of the screw gets reduced.

[Radio Wrangler]

The crimp approach is good. The wire relies on the 'high tensile plastic' fibres for strength and soldering melts them.

David

[ScottBouch]

Here is an article I recently wrote that includes a tinsel wire repair by wire wrap/lashing:

https://scottbouch.com/aircrew-uk-he...oration-01.htm

These tinsel wires were originally terminated with little crimps, which were soldered to the terminals. This fault in the tinsel wire was right at the point where it disappeared into the crimp, as if it had been strained at that point. I repaired it by lashing the tinsel and soldering directly as I had no suitable crimps or crimp tools of that nature.

I believe the central thread in these DEF-STAN type cables to be Kevlar, so there is no issue with heat from soldering. But some older cables may have used cotton in the centre, so be quick with the heat if you think it's cotton.

It's a fiddly, difficult job.. the overall finished wrapped diameter was approximately 1 mm to 1.5 mm in this case.

I am in my early 40s, and already my eyesight struggles with this task, a bit like threading a needle. I am thinking about buying a magnifier, as jobs like this will be a lot easier!

Without lashing or crimping, there is no decent way of soldering tinsel wire... I've tried several times over the years! It's used in WW2 and Cold War era aircraft flying helmets and aircraft intercom leads. Thankfully not so much in modern kit!

But Tinsel is highly flexible, and quite robust given repeated movements, and in lots of cases I've seen from the 50's / 60's, it out-survives the perishing rubber insulation!

Cheers, Scott

[Oldcodger]

I was always told that "Litz" wire was several strands of enamel covered wire, and that each strand had to be cleaned to be soldered. Then another story, that each strand could be soldered by dipping the ends in flux and tinning it. Take yer pick.

[McMurdo]

As a trainee we used Litz wire and just dipped the end into a solder pot before soldering in the usual way. It was used for inductors in the low ghz range.
But I would say your headphone cable is either tinsel wire as already mentioned, or possibly steel, as used in my sennheiser professional headphones.
If it's tinsel and you've decided your only option is soldering, then my method is to dip it in thick flux, twist it together and very quickly tin it with a hot iron.

The very cheap stuff can simply disappear under the heat and I do remember once whipping the end with some fine copper wire stripped from a bit of cheap flex, then tinning that instead.

Steel just needs a bit of flux and the insulation freshly stripped to reveal a nice clean portion.

[m0cemdave]

The instructions for soldering the tinsel wires used in Beyer DT100-109 headset cables state that after tinning the connector terminals, the wires should be soldered to them at a temperature between 190 and 200C, and not to exceed 200C. That's 400F, i.e. a number 4 Weller bit. To do this properly requires Low Melting Point solder.

[PJC58-Hythe]

For anyone interested here is some pictorial info on Litz & Tinsel wire.

[ScottBouch]

Oh, that's brilliant, thank you!!

Would you mind sharing the sources of the tinsel images in the PDF?

Cheers, Scott.