RS-485 Cable

I'm using a 4 wire, shielded twisted pair cable 22/4, since in addition to RS-485 signals, I run power (Red) and ground (Black) through it to small Nano Servers, each of which draw just a few MA.   This cable consists of four 22 AWG, stranded, insulated wires, and one bare 22 SWG drain wire, wrapped in an aluminum shield. I tie the drain wire to the gound (Black), grounds of all services and the master are tied together.   I only connect the RS-485 cable drain and ground wires to actual ground in one place in the system (at the master, prevents ground loops).
I strip about 4mm of insulation from the ends, tin any stranded ends, then bend a hook in each wire.   I put HS (heat shrink) on the connector wires, hook red to red, black to black, etc., squeez the hooks together, then solder.   Last I heat the HS to secure and insulate the joint.  

Right now, I'm considering using USB-A male connectors on each end, with a USB-A female on each device's PCB.   Each device would need 2 USB-A females, so I can plug in two cables for other devices on the LocNet.

The shielded twisted pair cable, 4 wire with shield.   The Red & Black wires will be +5 and ground, the blue and yellow will be the RS-485 A & B signals (B is blue).

The 4 wire shielded twisted pair cable on the left.   Note the Red, Black, and Blue connector wires have a mating color in the 4 wire cable so I had to match the green connector wire to the yellow cable wire.   Also note the bare wire is called a drain wire and connects to the foil shield in the cable.   Before actually connecting the wires, I put a short piece of HS on the connector wires.  e The connector wires are stranded so I tinned them, then put a little hook on the end of all wires to be joined.

Sliding HS onto the connector leads.

You can see the HS on the connector end (away from heat of soldering).

Then I hook both ends of wire to be joined and solder them.   Note I soldered the drain wire to the black ground wire.

After the soldering is done, I slide the HS (heat shrink) up over the sodered joint and heat it.

Closer look at individual HS cable termination.

Final, I put a larger HS (heat shrink) over the 4 individual wire HSs.   Note this is the Gateway end, it has an extra ground wire to ground the entire system.

Close up of the larger HS.

The Env Server (slave) end of the the RS-485 cable.

Closer look, note large HS over smaller HS.