The first thing you need to do is figure out a way to organize and lock down the wires. I made a jig and I feed the wires through and hot glue the ends to keep them in place. The reason for this is that you’ll need to stretch the wires tight. Did I say tight? I meant TIGHT!!
Get the wires as tight as you can. I lay the wires across a board in order to help tighten up the wires. Then I use a clamp to tighten the wires even more. This is really important, otherwise your finished ribbon cable will not be uniform and it will look crappy.
Press the clear vinyl strips into the two gaps between the solid color bundle, the purple, grey, white, black bundle, and the striped wire bundle.
Now is the time for the magic sauce. You’ll need to get a tube of E6000 Craft adhesive. This is available at craft store (Hobby Lobby, Michael’s, etc) It is clear, fliexible and strong.
The cable should be roughly 3" wide or slightly wider, never less. When making the cable, try and make small spaces between the wires, it’s more accurate and that way the size of the spacers stays narrow while the cable itself retains it’s 3" width
The clear strips of vinyl for the spacers should have a bit of an opaqueness to them, so as the spacers wont be completely transparent, but more translucent.
The fumes from E6000 craft adhesive are very strong and very toxic. Make sure you do this outdoors, with a filtered mask on.
the first pic shows the spaces between the wires very well, but in the second pic you can barely make them out. I just thought these might be nice reference shots.
Has anyone thought of using a laminate paper to do this; might be easier and I know some places you can get sheets any size you need and it would provide that clear look to it.
Id love to see what this looks like. My cable I got from solidgoldcandy a while back is started to separate. I want to take the wires out and make a stronger bond and this looks like it could be it.
I’ve sourced a few places to buy it, the problem is most places won’t do small batches so expect to buy between 100 and 500 feet of each of the 16 colors plus striping fee for 6. It’s usually between $45-$75 per spool. You wind up with a ton of wire but you pretty much HAVE to sell cables to offset the costs.
