Building Layers
Contents
Good. Enough theory. Let’s do some practice. We’re going to build a power cable with some stuff that anyone can easily afford and is easy to get. We’ve put the parts list below the video.
Basically, it comes down to getting some VMVK cable from the hardware store and properly shielding it with adhesive copper foil. That foil is what we end up connecting to ground at both ends to keep EMI and HF in and out.
It is quite a job to tape two meters of VMVK. We tell you in advance that you should NOT remove the paper already. Everything will stick together which will make wrapping unnecessarily difficult. We could have predicted that. But anyway… now you know. Of course you can also buy a shielded cable and double shield it with copper foil. Do what you can not resist. The reason that we still use the copper foil, is that this will cover the cable for the full 100%. A braided sleeve doesn’t always do that.
When the cable is taped, you can put the sleeve around it. We have chosen a beautiful Alpha Yellow… logical, right? If you want a really tight finish, you can use some heat shrink tubing to secure the sleeve in place before you put the plugs on. We use some tape because we don’t have a heat-gun.
The plugs we purchased are versions with rhodium. They look a bit like fancy Furutech plugs, but we can guarantee that Furutech is better finished. However: they screw together solidly and they clamp well. Since we are working with solid core wires here, we would like to urge you to really screw things on tightly; solid core can easily come loose if you wriggle it a bit. So be sure to test that.
Purpose of this project
We have not yet compared with other cables, as the cable has just been completed and we have not yet had time to sit down and listen to it. However, that is not the purpose of this project. We want to find out what the influences of shielding are with our building projects. And how can you do that better than putting things together yourself and comparing them? That is fun and educational. Isn’t it?
By the way, for those who are really curious about our first impression: it sounds great… but if we estimate it not on the level of a serious high-end cable … but then again, for 25 Euros you shouldn’t expect that, should you?
Watch the video!
Parts list
- Cable: VMVK from the hardware store
- Sleeve: Ali-Express
- Copper foil: Amazon
- Plugs: Ali Express
