"Alex Coleman" wrote in message
...
On 03 Jun 2007, Owain wrote:

Coleman wrote:
[...]

Then stop bodging things and install a proper, permanent socket
where it is needed.

Owain


Bit drastic?

I didn't see the beginning of this thread, but a technique that I frequently
use when joining wires is as follows. Look at the diagrams in Courier New
font, or they won't make much sense.

-------------- -------------------
Cable +---- wire_1 --------------------+ Cable
sheath +----------- wire_2 -------------+ sheath
+-------------------- wire_3 ----+
-------------- ---------------------

Firstly, strip a piece of the outer cable sheath off and put it to one side
to use later.
Then cut the wires as shown in the diagram. Bare the ends of the wires, and
solder the two ends of wire_1 together, and the same for the other wires.
Because the wires were cut to different lengths in this way, the soldered
joints are not close to each other, and cannot short together.

Now take the piece of sheath that you put to one side, slit it down the
side, and put it over the new joints. At this point, the cable should look
almost as if it had never been worked on.

-------------- ------------------------------------------------- -------------------
Cable | This is the piece of sheath that you | Cable
sheath | kept to one side, now used to | sheath
| cover the joint |
-------------- ------------------------------------------------- ---------------------

Now wind some electrician's tape around the full length of the sheath that
you have inserted, and an inch or so beyond each end. Better still would be
if you had slipped a piece of heat-shrink tubing over the wire before
soldering it together. The heat-shrink tubing should be about two inches
longer than the piece of sheathing you used to cover the joints.
__________________________________________________ _______________
---------/ / / / / / /
/-----------
/ / / Taped up with electrician's tape / /
----/ / / / / /
/____
/ / / / / / /
/
----------/__________________________________________________ _______________/------------

I have used the same technique on multi-wire cable - most recently on an
Ethernet cable that I had to cut to get through a small hole, then join
together again, because I didn't have the tool to put the connector back on.
In this case, with 8 wires, the total length of the connection was about 4
inches.

MikeC