[sdiy] Mini-Din cable woes

[Michael E Caloroso]

What about replacing the jacks with something more DIY friendly?  DIN
plugs are bad enough, mini-DIN interconnects are pretty awful.

MC

On 12/31/18, Joel B <onephatcat at earthlink.net> wrote:
> I have a couple of Pearl fightman analog drum modules (circa 1979/80) and
> one came with the complete drum kit and cables, the other without.
>
>  I’ve been attempting to create a second set of cables, with only partial
> success. The cables are each a 5 pin mini-din (https://goo.gl/images/pDHvsP)
> that split to a fan of 4 and 5 RCA Male jacks - proprietary cables that
> nobody seems to make. (crash/ride/oh/ch)/(kick/snare/toms). First problem is
> how to solder tiny wires to tiny posts. Took a while to get that right, and
> I’m pretty sure there is a better way, like wires with some kind of clip
> already attached...
>
> Second problem was that I think the outside ring on the mini-din is the
> ground (or at least the “common” wire) as far as I can tell from my amature
> multimetering.
>
> So I built a couple cables, and the second try sort of worked but a little
> intermittently. Thinking I understood how to do this now I built a third one
> that works even less and a fourth one that doesn’t work at all. I can’t find
> a short. The pins all have good connectivity.
>
> I was trying to adapt to 3.5mm jacks so I wired to 3.5mm female sockets
> instead of RCA male, to use with beatstep pro or other trigger (Original
> cables with an rca/3.5mm adapter do work with beatstep pro). I could only
> find TRS 3.5mm sockets online when I wanted TS but I’m pretty sure I
> soldered that part the same way on all my attempts...
>
> I’m wondering, are the pins on the newer mini-din male just maybe not long
> enough? What am I doing wrong? Certainly they seem not designed for the
> sleeve of the mini-din to be a soldier point but It seems to be so in the
> original cables, so I made that connection.
>
> Joel