Make Your Homemade Coaxial Jumper Cables Look Professional

Is this the way your “home-made” coaxial jumpers look?

There is a simple way to make your “home-made” coaxial jumpers look more professional.

Coaxial strain reliefs can be purchased for various sizes of coaxial cable and added to your jumpers to improve not only the looks, they also help extend the life to the cables you make up. Here is a link to some of the various styles which Digi-Key stocks: Coaxial Strain Reliefs.

In this example, the ACX1818-ND was chosen because we are using RG-58 coaxial cable and a BNC connector is going to be installed on the cable. I also suggest installing a short piece of 2:1 heat shrink tubing over the back side crimp of the connector. This will add a little bit of “extra filler” so the strain relief will not move over time. You can see the heat shrink located just to the right of the strain relief.

Next, strip the coaxial cable to the manufacturer specifications for the connector and crimp the center pin.

Assemble the rest of the connector and prepare the braid for the crimp ferrule.

Slide the ferrule over the braid and crimp with the hex crimper to complete the connector installation.

Now move the heat shrink tubing over the crimp ferrule and shrink down in place.

Last, finish up the connector installation by sliding the strain relief over the coax cable. Make sure the strain relief slides up against the back side of the connector.

Now with the addition of the small piece of heat shrink and the strain relief, your test cables will stand up to rigorous daily use.

Strain Relief Part Numbers

Mfg: 25-B174 60015-000 25-B58 5-1478996-6 25-7959BK 3-1478996-6 1-1478996-6 VSR200 GMB.00.025.DN GMD.00.025.DN GMD.00.028.DN GMF.00.018.DN 25-7958BK VSR100 VSR302 GMD.00.032.DN 25-B58TN WB-1 1-1478996-0 1-1478996-1 1-1478996-2 1-1478996-3 1-1478996-4 1-1478996-5 3-1478996-0 3-1478996-1 3-1478996-2 3-1478996-3 3-1478996-4 3-1478996-5 4-1478996-5 5-1478996-0 5-1478996-1 5-1478996-2 5-1478996-3 5-1478996-4 5-1478996-5 2-1478996-6 4-1478996-6 6-1478996-1 6-1478996-2 6-1478996-3 6-1478996-4 6-1478996-5 6-1478996-6 60052-000 60030-000 VSR101 VSR103 VSR104 VSR105 VSR106 VSR107 VSR108 VSR109 VSR300 VSR304 VSR305 VSR306 VSR308 SR174BLK SR58BLK SR59BLK 031-1277-1 EM5155-4# EM5155-8# EM5155-9# EM5156-4# EM5156-5# EM5156-9# EM5157-2# EM5157-3# EM5157-5# EM5157-6# EM5157-8# EM5157-9# EM5155-1# EM5155-5# EM5155-6# EM5157-4# 5076-0 031-5271 5155-0 5155-2 5156-0 5156-2 5157-0

D/K: 367-1222-ND ACX1818-ND 367-1225-ND A105057-ND 367-1223-ND A105033-ND A111904-ND 1427-1110-ND 1124-1019-ND 1124-1020-ND 1124-1021-ND 1124-1021-ND 1124-1023-ND 367-1158-ND 1427-1101-ND 1427-1112-ND 1124-1022-ND