Step 2:  Prepping the Materials

Now we need to get everything ready and transform it as much as we can before we start connecting parts.

Go ahead and get the soldering iron plugged in and turned on, and set it at about 30.

For the connector pins, use the wire cutters to snip 4 of them off.  They should be cut right below the second set of clips.

Take the RCA cable and snip off the 3 plugs off of one end.  If the 3 wires are sort of formed together, pull them apart about 4 inches.  Strip all 3 wires down, leaving about a 1/2″ where the cords are still separated.  Most RCA cables can be safely stripped with the 12 gauge setting.  What you’ll notice now is that you have 3 more wires with casing, and then a bunch of copper wires sticking out.  Untangle the exposed wires from the three signal wires, and twist them all together.  These are the grounds of each signal wire.  We could connect all these individually (what would be done in a manufactured cord) but for simplicity we’re going to treat them as one.  Once they’re all together and as separated from the signal wires as possible, cut the long strand leaving about half an inch left.

Notice the 3 colored signal wires and short exposed ground.

From the spool of extra wire, pull out a length roughly equal to the colored signal wires and cut.  On one end, strip about 1/2″ of the wire.  On the other end, strip about 1/4″ of casing off.

Now is a good time to note which color composite plugs that the colored signal wires match up with.  In my case, the green signal wire led to white (left audio), blue led to yellow (video), and the red went to red (right audio).

In my example I did this next bit in a slightly different order, but I probably should’ve done it at this point.  At the end of each of the signal wires, strip about 1/4″.

With all the wires ready, now we’ll start connecting the pieces.

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