elephant wrote:

Can’t see the diagram

KevinH. wrote:

1.) I planned to just cut 1 meter ML cables in half and splice the ends to the bulk cable I had run.  Can this be done? I am not able to get this to work.  I am wondering if there is something special that needs to be done with the bare wire strands with the B/BW G/GW O/OW and B/BW pairs and or special handling or precaution for the shielding around each group?

Yes it can be done, but ensure each of the screened wires are also connected..

Hi Keith, 

Thank you for your advice! So when I went and looked at the cables I had described them wrong so I drew that attached picture that shows how the cable actually is. If I understand things correctly now Masterlink is a 12 conductor cable.  With three groups of three wires and 3 singles wires.  Are the bare wires like a common ground or are they discreet and need to be carefully handled when splicing the ends on so as to ensure no shorts through the blue foil to another of the bare wires? I numbered the 12 conductors do I have them right; 

Orange 1

Orange/White 2

bare wire 3

 blue foil shielding 

Red 4

Red/White 5

bare wire 6

blue foil shielding 

Green 7

Green/White 8

bare wire 9

blue foil shielding

Blue 10

Blue/White 11

Pink 12

Cotton/Paper Sheild

Outer Casing/Cover

I don’t see a problem there.

Why not just use the junction boxes - that is what they are meant for!

The drawing also indicates that they are/can be used.

Or have I overlooked something in your question?

MM

Millemissen wrote:

Why not just use the junction boxes - that is what they are meant for!

There are several reasons why you may not use a junction box.

If your master link cables are in the same room for example using a junction box may well be the right and a good solution.

However, where you have a multi-room where cables are going through a wall or similar barrier then having a plug at the end of the cable can be an issue. Also buying per-made cable lengths will almost always not provide you with the exact length you require when installing a large multi-room installation.

I myself have 9 rooms connected and all the connections are spliced.

When splicing two or more cables together the three screen/earth wires must be connected to their associated two wire bundle.

When I splice cables I always solder the joints with thin heat shrink tube over each joint. See example of one of my junction boxes

@Keith

Sure it can be done, it is just that I personally never had to do it - even at the time, when I had 6 ML-rooms in my house.

But I have seen it done from installers several times.

Joining 3 or even 4 ML’s in the junction box seemed to me easier than soldering.

Looking at the drawing once again, I noticed that the ‘junction’ in the closet would have at least 5 ML’s joined. I don’t know why the string to the BL Passive/Bath is green.

Joining 5 ML’s in a junction box however, should not be done.

But I guess that KevinH now has all the answers for how to splice properly ;-)

MM