What does the back of your rack look like when you're wiring it?

[Remoteness]

I figured it was the perfect opportunity to move the "build out" posts to a new thread.
here's a few pictures of the fabrication and wiring process of one of our budget recording rigs...

I put this build out on the fast track; I designed it about two days before we started the work on it. It should be completed by next week.

The majority of the components, panels, patch bay, ELCOs, chassis XLRs, wire (even the roadcase and rack) are from decommissioned rigs. I have an area that houses all our old project components worthy of keeping around. I have new and used stuff that dates back to the 70s and 80s.
Crazy, right?

All I purchased for this rig were the TRS connectors; everything else came off my shelves.

We shall be modifying the XTA DS800s as soon as XTA gets us the paper work and extra boards. We plan to remove the eight resistor network switches in each unit and replace them with single turn 1K potentiometers.

I want the XTAs to act more like mic pres than active mic/line splitter/distribution amplifiers.

IMO, 10dB steps is not an acceptable way to adjust the mic gain when tracking.

John Molinaro is handling all the mods and wiring at my shop for this project.

Questions?


.

[Remoteness]

Monday, we plan to continue working on this project.
I will upload more pictures as things develop.

Does anyone have any comments, questions and/or thoughts?

I'm all ears.

[jude]

Originally Posted by Remoteness

Monday, we plan to continue working on this project.
I will upload more pictures as things develop.

Does anyone have any comments, questions and/or thoughts?

I'm all ears.

ahhh one question...
can i have it?

[talbe1019]

Originally Posted by Remoteness

Monday, we plan to continue working on this project.
I will upload more pictures as things develop.

Does anyone have any comments, questions and/or thoughts?

I'm all ears.

What's above the Roland mixer and below the power conditioner?

[Remoteness]

Three eight channel XTA DS800s.

Like I stated in the other post, we shall be modifying the XTA DS800s as soon as XTA gets us the paper work and extra boards. We plan to remove the eight resistor network switches in each unit and replace them with single turn 1K potentiometers.

I want the XTAs to act more like mic pres than a active mic/line splitter/distribution amplifiers.

IMO, 10dB steps is not an acceptable way to adjust the mic gain when tracking.

Originally Posted by talbe1019

What's above the Roland mixer and below the power conditioner?

[talbe1019]

Originally Posted by Remoteness

Three eight channel XTA DS800s.

Like I stated in the other post, we shall be modifying the XTA DS800s as soon as XTA gets us the paper work and extra boards. We plan to remove the eight resistor network switches in each unit and replace them with single turn 1K potentiometers.

I want the XTAs to act more like mic pres than a active mic/line splitter/distribution amplifiers.

IMO, 10dB steps is not an acceptable way to adjust the mic gain when tracking.

Ahhh...I didn't read the post thoroughly enough...sorry. I looked at the link and the manual and understand what you want to accomplish now. Thanks.

[Remoteness]

While working on Elroy and Cosmo we managed to get some work done on the Budget 24 rig.

Here's some pictures of the FOH and MON outputs XLRs.
These cables shall be wyed to two chassis mounted ELCOs each.

Next on the list is the line mixer and HD24XRs wiring.

[Remoteness]

Step by step; inch by inch...

[fifthcircle]

Wow Steve, with you, the most mundane gear can have sex appeal.

--Ben

[Remoteness]

This is what I'm talkin' 'bout...

[Remoteness]

The Dual HD24XR I/O cables are almost crimped; 24 more to do and we're ready to pin the four chassis mounted ELCO90 connectors...

Any thoughts?

[Brenton]

"What does the back of your rack look like when you're wiring it?"


Nothing like yours!

[Remoteness]

Okay, but you are welcomed to show it to us.
A picture is worth a thousand words.

IMO, it's all good if it works and sounds great ;-)

Originally Posted by Brenton

"What does the back of your rack look like when you're wiring it?"


Nothing like yours!

[sonicdefault]

You're doing nice work there Steve... looks good!


-SD

[muziekschuur]

In holland we use for Harting 108p the AMPCO norm. I'm not sure if that is the way you guys wire the Harting connectors.

I just aqcuired a Harting crimptool myself. But your's looks bigger and different. Is this a Harting tool or maybe a multitool?

Last question. I have a stageblock with Harting 108p a split (XLR) the input xlrs and 4 unknown connectors....

Do you know wich connector would fit on this chassis?

[Remoteness]

I never used Harting connectors.

EDAC/ELCO; DSUBs; MASS W4; DT12 and in the old days Cannon LK connectors are what we (used and) use today.

If you're referring to the crimp tool we used in the photos, it's a EDAC/ELCO crimp tool.

I have no idea what type of connectors you have in that photo, but...

Have you opened the box to see if there's a manufacturer's name or model number?

[muziekschuur]

Great suggestion.

And allso thanks for shrinking the photo.... I did not know how.

And I thought those grey connectors were Harting connectors. I was mistaken...

[Brenton]

Originally Posted by Remoteness

Okay, but you are welcomed to show it to us.
A picture is worth a thousand words.

IMO, it's all good if it works and sounds great ;-)

I'd love to but I have just moved and dismantled my studio and everything is in storage, but just picture a huge bowl of black pasta.

They always start out looking as good as yours but somehow they turn into pasta after a while.

But they do work.

[Remoteness]

Hey, as long as it works!

[Fuzzy Logic]

its great when it works but if you ever need to get to something in a rush the cleaner the wiring the better it is to find the problem.

[Quint]

Originally Posted by Remoteness

The Dual HD24XR I/O cables are almost crimped; 24 more to do and we're ready to pin the four chassis mounted ELCO90 connectors...

Any thoughts?

I'm thinking about doing something similar with Elcos as well. From what I can tell, you're only crimping and not soldering right? Also where did you get the panel to put all of your Elco's on? I'm gonna need something similar to mount on the rear of my rack so that I can use a long, elco to elco cable to interconnect from the elcos on the back of my rack with the patchbay on my console.

Also, I'm thinking of going 12 in and 12 out on one 90 pin elco (and the same on another) instead of going 24 in on one elco and 24 out on another elco. 12 in and 12 out seems like the better way to do it but I was curious as to your opinion on the matter. 12 in and 12 out on two seperate elcos or 24 in on one elco and 24 out on the other? By the way, what kind of pinout layouts are you using?

One last thing, as far as the rest of the console (and patchbay setup too, I guess) is concerned, do you think it's best to go with 90 pin elcos (to get 24 channels in one connector) or to split the job up and use more, smaller pin elcos?

Sorry for all the questions but I'm fairly new to Elcos and you seem to be an Elco guru.

[Remoteness]

Yes, we only crimp the ELCO pins.
I found that soldering and crimping doesn't work well together.
Furthermore, I found that crimping overall is superior to soldering.

Those are Middle Atlantic UCP panels.
We have a ton of them in stock.
PM if you need a few.

Most of our ELCO cables are either 24 in or 24 out, but we do have some that are both ins & outs and a few specialty cables.

I also designed some interesting ways to wire a chassis mounted ELCO.
Do a search for the "Flip Wilson" technique for more details...

Okay, or you can just click on this link > Steve, wiring racks and organization

Way back when, I came up with my own pin-out because no one had one figured out yet.
At the time I got the Toy Specialists and another studio to use my pin-out design since we were using each other's gear and stuff.

I designed it to be seriously simple when it came to figuring it out on the spot in a tough live situation. Basically it's two channels per row. 12 channels above the screw and twelve channels below the screw.

Nowadays there's an ELCO90 standard, but we don't use it because the wiring layout does not make any sense for our use. IMO. with that design, you would need a diagram each and every time you want to re-pin or fix them on the spot and that's not acceptable to me. It's just a lot more to remember; IMO my way is simpler and much easier to remember.

We short load ELCO90 connector. I figured that it would make more sense to have a whole bunch of ELCO90s instead of different sizes. If a harness goes bad all we have to do is swap it out with another one. Even if it's short loaded; a fully loaded harness would work just fine.
We have plenty of short loaded ELCOs in our shop.
We even use them as audio/video connectors.
We also run DC voltage and PTZ control along with the A/V.
As long as it works anything goes at our shop.

The way I figured our ELCO/EDAC connector situation is as follows.
Decide on the largest connector you're going to use and make that your connector for all sizes.
It's a great way of covering your arse if one of your harnesses takes a dump.

I hope this helped.

[Quint]

Hey, thanks for all the info. That answers a lot of my questions. I'm trying to make everything as modular as possible so that my outboard gear can connect just as easily in a remote situation as it will in the studio. I want to be able to unplug an elco and go. I'm still trying to wrap my head around all of this but this helped a bunch. How much do you want for one of those UPC panels or whatever it is that I need? I guess I just need a two space frame kit and a couple of those dual elco90 upc panels like I saw in one of the pics you posted.

By the way, am I correct in thinking that all of your equipment, consoles, tape machines, etc. should have female elcos and all of your cables should have male elcos?

Oh, and are there any cheaper options for crimping tools other than that Paladin I've seen some people suggest? What do you use? Thanks.

[PlugHead]

MY GOD - that is a thing of beauty.

I wouldn't even dare to show a pic of what mine looks like, either at home or on a remote.

Luckily, everything has worked, and still does!

I really wish I had someone to design and build my bays - I suck at that aspect...

[Remoteness]

Originally Posted by Quint

Hey, thanks for all the info. That answers a lot of my questions. I'm trying to make everything as modular as possible so that my outboard gear can connect just as easily in a remote situation as it will in the studio. I want to be able to unplug an elco and go. I'm still trying to wrap my head around all of this but this helped a bunch. How much do you want for one of those UPC panels or whatever it is that I need? I guess I just need a two space frame kit and a couple of those dual elco90 upc panels like I saw in one of the pics you posted.

By the way, am I correct in thinking that all of your equipment, consoles, tape machines, etc. should have female elcos and all of your cables should have male elcos?

Oh, and are there any cheaper options for crimping tools other than that Paladin I've seen some people suggest? What do you use? Thanks.

No problem; I'm glad that I could help.

I forgot to mention in this thread how (in some of my 12 channel racks) my "Flip Wilson" ELCO wiring design comes in very handy when you only want to use one 24 channel ELCO90 cable for both (12/12) inputs and outputs just like you were thinking of. The 12/12 or Flip Wilson can also bridge another 12 channel rack via one 24 channel ELCO90 snake. So, you can have one 24 channel input snake feed two twelve channel racks. Same goes with the outputs. It's a very efficient design with many options.

So, I can run with just one AC cable and one ELCO90 per 12 channel rack when I'm using the Flip Wison as a 12in/12out connection. My UREI and DBX racks are designed this way.

PM me with your email address and phone number so we can continue the discussion about those UPC panels and such. I hate pimping my stuff here, so please respect my PM request.

Yes, you are indeed correct.
All chassis mounted ELCOs are female and all snakes and harnesses are male.
Keep in mind that this is a Aura-Sonic thingy; everyone doesn't do it this way.
I've seen panels with male chassis mounted ELCOs and I find that very strange, especially when you could knock into one and screw all sorts of things that way.

I have the original ELCO and a few EDAC tools, so I cannot help you there since they are not cheap, but they could be cheaper than the Paladin tool.

Originally Posted by PlugHead

MY GOD - that is a thing of beauty.

I wouldn't even dare to show a pic of what mine looks like, either at home or on a remote.

Luckily, everything has worked, and still does!

I really wish I had someone to design and build my bays - I suck at that aspect...

Thanks Jay.

I believe it's a beautiful thing too. Crazy, right?
I love when wiring projects go well.
I trust the wiring will work as well as it looks.
We should have everything buttoned up by the end of next week, so we will know then.

Perhaps you can blow off how things are wired in the studio because you can spent the time hunting if something goes wrong, but I strongly suggest you get your remote rig wiring up to snuff. You never know when you may need to quickly fix or re-patch something on the spot.

[Remoteness]

We're getting closer to completion.
All the ELCOs are done except the input (XLR) daisy chained ELCO.
All we have left to do is wire the inputs; mixer I/Os and the mixer input patch bay...

[bishopthomas]

Originally Posted by Quint

Oh, and are there any cheaper options for crimping tools other than that Paladin I've seen some people suggest? What do you use? Thanks.

Just get the Paladin. It was a hard $130 to drop on a tool (bought mine from Redco) but well worth it. You'll want the extraction tool, too. Don't think, "I'll do it right the first time so I'll save some cash by not buying the extraction tool." You WILL be frustrated while wiring your first connector when you can't undo your mistake. Don't get the insertion tool, though - a flathead precision screwdriver will do just fine.

As far as the gender, I find it easier to mate an inline male into a female chassis. It's easier to line up for me since I can see all of the pins and all of the holes at the same time. And for wiring, I did one project the AuraSonic way but decided to keep to the new standard (on the Whirlwind site) for future crossrental compliance. At the same time, though, Elco's are not very common and it seems that everyone has their own way of doing them, so whatever method you use make sure you keep the pinout handy. I have a copy on my computer that goes to every gig with me, along with manuals for every piece of gear I own.

[Remoteness]

Aura-Sonic pin-out channels 25 through 30 are exactly the same as the Whirlwind pin-out standard.
I felt it was easier to remember six 2 channels horizontal rows (above and below the screw) than six vertical channels twice. Way too much to think about if and when the client or PM; SM, etc is breathing down your neck.

IMO, if you wire it the Aura-Sonic way you wouldn't need a pin-out diagram handy.
I believe it's a lot simpler (a no-brainer) to pin or re-pin when you're on the spot in a hot situation, but I digress.

Here's somemore non-standard ELCO wiring for your review.

[Remoteness]

A little more progress...
All Roland M480 master L/R, SUB L/R, MON L/R outs, FX sends/returns and aux ins are wired to balanced TRS and laced ready for chassis mounted XLR prep...

Did you notice the red and green tie wraps?
Red for IN (RECORD); Green for OUT (PLAYBACK)

What about those blue and yellow tie wraps?
Blue for MONITOR OUTS; Yellow for FOH OUTS.

[Quint]

So what is the most commonly used pinout anyway?