How do I join this cable?

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Tim84

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It's just a cheap pre-crimped shotgun cable for CCTV. I can obviously join the red to red and yellow to yellow but there is a copper threaded coating like a coaxial cable. Does anyone know if I can properly join these cables? Basically I want to do a cut and shut to get rid of excess length.

Thank you
 

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You say its shotgun cable ?
shotgun%20website%20inner-500x500.jpg
Where is the other half ?
 
I didn't say it was a double barrelled shotgun...

Either way, wrong terminology aside, it is as per the picture so advice would be appreciated. There's power and video cables on there with the coax style wrap around them.
 
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I'm surprised you don't know SatCure. They've been on-line for about twenty years, providing free information and selling products.
 
I don't think I've never seen them, Sam. I'm only a DIYer though so I've not done that much searching for these kind of things in the past. I'm having a browse now as they seem to sell a large variety of useful bits.
 
Tim84, what you call the 'copper threaded coating' is the ground wire for each signal. It need connecting to complete the circuit. It's difficult to tell from your picture whether there's a ground inside each of the yellow and red outers. If so then the innermost core is the signal, then there will be some insulting material, then the copper braid/wrap for signal ground, then the outer in either yellow or red. If this is what you have, and you can solder, then buy a couple of metal bodied phono plugs and solder signal to the connection for the tip, and then the signal ground to the connection for the outer ring on the plug.

If your cable construction is where there's one outer wrap around both the yellow and red wires then you'll need to get the drain wire and split it in to two and wire that to the connection for the outer ring on the plug.
 
Thank you Lucid.

There is a single core in the red (power) and a single core in the yellow (video) then both are wrapped together in the 'ground wire' with then an almost paper like sleeve before the outer black sleeve. So, in a nutshell, the second kind of cable you've described.

If I understand what you've said then I need to basically make sure the ground wire, or copper threaded coating as I called it, is soldered together somehow too so that it's firmly connected (keeping in mind I intend to cut a length out of the middle of the cable rather than attach new connectors on one end). It's a crappy cable and so the ground wire is flakey as they come. That said, this was a spare that I cut up to look inside as it was the cheap one. The other cables in use are hopefully a bit better; only one way to find out...
 
What you have then is something like this...

9-7b.jpg


The foil is a metalised plastic called Mylar. It's crap an conducting, that's why there's also a bare earthing wire.

I'm a bit puzzled by your description of red as power. I can't say I've ever come across a power connection that shares a ground with the video signal on the yellow wire. My read on the wire you have based on the picture is that it is a basic video + single channel audio cable. It wouldn't surprise me to find those two signal types sharing a common ground connection. They're similar voltages (1v -ish) , negligible current, and there's a precedent for this type of connection where the cameras have a built-in mic.

Camera power is generally higher voltage (12v) and there's some current flow too (approx 300-500mA if it's a day/night cam with built-in IR), plus there's probably going to be different earthing points with power from a brick PSU and chassis earth for the video signal. They'll both be double insulated but still there's a possibility that 'chassis' earth for each will be at different potentials.
 
Lucid said:
then there will be some insulting material
Click to expand...
LOL! I used to type insulting material but I've mellowed in my old age. ;)

Lucid said:
It's crap an conducting
Click to expand...
No, it's crap at conducting. (It really is. And it can fracture, leaving no connection.)

Would you like to employ me as your editor? I'll just follow you around and correct your typos for a small fee. ;)
 
Thanks Lucid and Sparkymarka - I was expecting to find three cores more like a red/black for the power and yellow coax with ground wrapping for the video. That's why I was a bit confused as to how to join it as it wasn't as I expected. From what Sparkymarka has said it would seem there is a common ground for the video and power; bit bizarre but I guess they do what they can to get the cost down.

This is why I described them as shotgun cables too as I was expecting more like two separate cable types together. As said, the wire in the picture was never used as didn't work so I bought some very slightly better ones; probably still got the common ground though.

So my solution is to solder yellow <> yellow and heat shrink, red <> red and heat shrink, and then try and join the crappy common ground somehow (ideas?), then heat shrink the lot. It'll be joined internally (loft) so weather proofing not so much of an issue. Easier said than done I think... could be better just to keep the excess cable length, I just wanted to avoid voltage drop.
 
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