Custom PSU Cables

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bacon11

Weaksauce
Joined
Jun 24, 2010
Messages
81
My Silverstone OP650 is out of warranty and already slightly modded with new sleeve.

I just moved into an mATX case and consequently don't need as many cables as the PSU has and I also don't need about 50% of the length of the cables. I was considering cutting off the cables I don't need, like both SATA lines (have molex > SATA adapters... has to do with how I hid my drives), a molex line, and my 8pin PCI-E. For the cables I do need, like the 4pin CPU, 24pin, 6pin PCI-E, and the remaining molex, I need to cut out at least 6 inches of each.

I was considering
1) Cutting them in the middle, cutting out the middle third, and then soldering them back together, heat shrinking the joint, and then re-sleeving.
2) Buying a crimper and pins, cutting the cables to length, and crimping on new pins
3) Desoldering the wires from my PSU board, cutting to length, and then resoldering to the PSU board.

I'd like to stay away from 3 because that seems too risky for me. I would go with the second route, but the crimper I want would need to be sent from Germany (MDPC-X crimper) and shipping is expensive. Do you guys think option 1 is okay? A friend said it would "dirty" the lines and cause resistance issues, but I don't think so. He said that I wouldn't be able to transmit as much power through the soldered joint.
 
Functionally any of these options is fine. I would go with #3 personally, but I am quite comfortable working with electronics, I can understand why this would make you uncomfortable.
 
If you're decent at soldering, #1 is probably the simplest/quickest... as it doesn't involve taking apart the PSU which I wouldn't be that comfortable with either.

I had to do it on a Corsair 850 I had because I destroyed a pin trying to re-sleeve the connection, I pulled a wire from another cable, cut the wire with the bad pin off and soldered the new wire on and all was good.

The only way you would have issues is if you didn't solder it properly.
 
Option 1 would be fine if you do it properly, but I would take the cleaner route and crimp on new pins.
 
New pins would be easier I think, but seeing as I have to shorten all the other lines on my PSU by at least 6 inches, I figured I would just cut in the middle and resolder all of them instead of buying a crimper to crimp new pins on one.

It'll be clean - I'm going to heatshrink over the joints and then I'm going to sleeve over that so no one will see it.
 
I'd also crimp on new pins. Soldering the wires together will work just fine, but you will end up with a cable that is very inflexible at one or more points. If the cable "path" is straight at the wire junction, then you won't notice, but if you need to curve the cable at the points where you soldered, it will likely stand out, even through sleeves.

I think what Zero82z meant by "cleaner" route was that you weren't introducing any more points of failure between the source and the load.
 
I know I can get cheaper crimpers, but the problem is the crimp. After seeing this picture that an XS user posted, I can't imaging buying a cheap crimper because it doesn't work as well.

The left pin was crimped with the MDPC-X crimpers and the MDPC-X pins. The right wire was done with the crimpers you find on Performance-PC's site and their ConnectX pins. There's a big difference there.
 
i dont know man. i have never seen anything like that. the pins have to come up to a spec. and the head of a crimper is very simple.they only show the head of the mdcp-x crimper, and like i noted before, it is exactly the same as the $15 waldom i linked to. and it makes perfect crimps on any pins i have ever used. but whatever, its your euros. lately i have been getting stuff from mdpc-x in like 5 days (nyc).
 
just a reminder that electrical soldering is an electrical connection not intended for any mechanical strength. If you splice the wires by cutting in the middle and they are stranded (100% likely) I would use an uninsulated crimp connector for mechanical strength and then fill with solder for optimum electrical connection and then heat-shrink. And Dan is exactly right this will give you about a 1 inch "solid" section of wire that will not bend so plan accordingly.

Pins not so much but if it is something I care about I will hit them with a soldering iron after crimping. Since these are power connections its not so critical about the solder follow up in either case. But just cutting, twisting together, solder and heat-shrink is not top of the line workmanship. Its unlikely in a PC but still sometimes the cables do get subjected to a good tug so some kind of mechanical support is preferred.
 
Last edited:
BillParrish said:
just a reminder that electrical soldering is an electrical connection not intended for any mechanical strength. If you splice the wires by cutting in the middle and they are stranded (100% likely) I would use an uninsulated crimp connector for mechanical strength and then fill with solder for optimum electrical connection and then heat-shrink. And Dan is exactly right this will give you about a 1 inch "solid" section of wire that will not bend so plan accordingly.

Pins not so much but if it is something I care about I will hit them with a soldering iron after crimping. Since these are power connections its not so critical about the solder follow up in either case. But just cutting, twisting together, solder and heat-shrink is not top of the line workmanship. Its unlikely in a PC but still sometimes the cables do get subjected to a good tug so some kind of mechanical support is preferred.
Click to expand...

So... what are you saying I should do? I'm confused.
 
I would vote for crimping.
Sweet and clean.
That german crimper looks like the schizzle, small investment and it's yours forever.

Do you know if it will crimp those little bitty fan connectors?
Man I could use one of those like yesterday.:D
 
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