Fellow PermaSeal Users,

I made over twenty custom length and colored cables today using PermaSeal I connectors and Belden 1505A RG59 coaxial cable. While the process takes some time, boy was it worth it. The "spaghetti" behind my cabinet is gone and has been replaced with organized cable runs between my components. Thanks again to everyone that helped me get this all figured out. I learned some things along the way that I'd like to share.

1. The Belden 1505A cable I used had a foil shield under the braid and it must be removed before sliding the cable into the connector. So fold the braid back and strip the foil. If you don't you run the risk of the foil making an electrical connection between the pin and the remainder of the connector. As you might guess I had a bad cable because of this. Thanks to Sluggo and Ritz for the recommendation to fold back the braid; that's how I found the foil.

2. Check continuity between the pins, outside barrel of the connectors and between a pin and the barrel before using the crimper to make sure a spare piece of braid did not make a connection between the pin and the rest of the connector. You can fix it versus throwing the cable away. I also checked the continuity after crimping.

3. Make sure the exposed solid center conductor is straight, e.g no little kinks. It makes it a lot easier to fully insert the cable in the connector.

4. The RS stripper Sluggo recommended worked great. It was already set up for 1/4" - 1/4" stripping so all I had to do was adjust the blade depth.

5. Cablesforless.com (Connectors and Steren tool) and Westlake Electronic Supply (colored Belden coax) had reasonable prices and prompt shipping. Thanks, Brad225 for recommending Cablesforless.

I have a few more cables to make to connect a VCR and double up on digital audio (Coax and optical) between my DVD and the 990. I'm going to set one of the DVD's digital outputs for CD music only.

All-in-all the process of making my own cables was very satisfying. Again, thanks to those on this forum for pitching in!