Rules and Guidelines
Want to participate in the discussions? Please read our Community Rules and Guidelines. Need some help? Visit Support and Answers.

  • State Not Answered
  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 17 replies
  • Subscribers 32 subscribers
  • Views 1844 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
You may also be interested in
This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

Restoration of braided flexible cable, circa 1925 (Low Voltage!)

AncientMariner
Managed to locate a pair of circa 1925 Ericsson BBC Headphones suitable for my similar age Ericsson Crystal Radio. The braided flexible cable looks a bit mucky.

I suspect that the inners are tinsel wrapped cotton similar to that used by Post Office Telephones in the days of plaited handset flexibles of the 1940s 50s. I guess there would be rubber overall insulation beneath the braid.


Question is, how to clean the cable up?  Ideas that have so far come to mind are 1) Hand hot water with some washing up liquid, or 2) electrical solvent such as Isopropyl Alcohol. I am a little wary as to be would be kinder to the rubber over insulation (If any) and the tinsel covered cotton?


Either way, or any other way, would be to afterwards jang the wet flex close to a CH radiator to dry out.


Thanks.

Clive

Parents
  • 0
    I have had some success with massaging in a little shampoo where the contamination is finger grease tobacco and so on, then rinse with clean water and a very slow dry.

    be gentle, the tinsel cable cores are really hard to solder to if you snap the ends.

    I'd like to think they are ELV rather than LV, but I have been shocked (in both senses) to find that on an HRO I was restoring a good few years back the headphone terminals connected directly between the output valve anode and the HT+ . (the terminal voltage being accessible as exposed 6BA bolts on the High Z headphones I was using at the time)   Some versions of the circuit showed an output transformer to drive low Z phones or a speaker, that one did not. Wartime design and production control was clearly a bit more liberal than we would allow today.

    Take care if you are ever moving into more modern stuff and doing that sort of thing.

Reply
  • 0
    I have had some success with massaging in a little shampoo where the contamination is finger grease tobacco and so on, then rinse with clean water and a very slow dry.

    be gentle, the tinsel cable cores are really hard to solder to if you snap the ends.

    I'd like to think they are ELV rather than LV, but I have been shocked (in both senses) to find that on an HRO I was restoring a good few years back the headphone terminals connected directly between the output valve anode and the HT+ . (the terminal voltage being accessible as exposed 6BA bolts on the High Z headphones I was using at the time)   Some versions of the circuit showed an output transformer to drive low Z phones or a speaker, that one did not. Wartime design and production control was clearly a bit more liberal than we would allow today.

    Take care if you are ever moving into more modern stuff and doing that sort of thing.

Children
No Data

Community Rules & Guidelines