Soldering connectors

G

gidman

New member
Greetings HR.com
I am ready to start soldering connectors, the wall plates are in place.
I have sheilded cable, 5wire.
What wires go on what spot? There are only 3 connections on the xlr.
Should I combine the 2 wires on each side and use the (bare) ground wire?
Don't want any hummmm....
Been a long time since I have soldered anything xlr.
The mind is always the first thing to go.

I have some hosa 3 wire sheilded also...
The trs connectors for headphones were a snap...work perfectly...
 
If your 5-conductor cable is actually starquad, here's what you'd do. With starquad, you get two insulated conductors of each color, and a shield. In that case, yes, you would connect the two of the same color: the two lighter ones both go to pin 2 (hot) the two darker ones both go to pin 3 (cold), and shield goes to pin 1.

Starquad cable is laid up so that you get additional noise cancellation from using the opposing pairs of wire, which makes it worth doing the extra work. Straight 4-conductor shielded does not have the same care in the layup, so it's not clear that you'd get anything additional for your efforts...

If it is just garden-variety 4-conductor shielded cable, you just need 3 conductors: keep the other two curled up to use as spares in case something unpleasant happens to your active ones. Ideally, you'd ground the extra ones at one end, just to keep them from floating and picking up LF magnetic crud. I'd bet you have starquad, though. Right?

Shield goes to pin 1, hot to pin 2, cold to pin 3. If you need to do a TRS, shield goes to sleeve, cold goes to ring, hot goes to tip.

Easy way to remember: just say "tip to 2", over and over again...
 
xlr trs connections

Thanks skippy !
I have tested what I have done thus far. I have this terrible buzz, hum, squeal, whatever you want to call it...I think that its a grounding problem. When I touch the console while holding a mic it quiets down, but is still there, also when I put the mic down it quiets down too...I tried to split it and use a couple of variations still the same hum.
Thats what I get for doing it wrong. DUH !
The laminated glass will be here tomorrow,All I have to finish is the connections and the project will be complete. Will post photos and plan soon.

I will redo the connectors the way you said to.


Thanks again,

Gidman
 
Sounds like you have the shield and either the hot or cold flipped. That case will give you massive amounts of 60Hz hum, maybe some AM radio, and *very little* of your desired signal. And the noise will vary wildly as you provide an alternate ground path. Connecting the shield drain to one input terminal of a balanced mic pre is an easy way to find out exactly how much EMI hash is floating around out there! Easy fix, though. It'll just take a little time.

Is your multiconductor cable starquad or something else? Just curious...
 
Ahh! Excellent- thanks for that reference. Alpha 2466C is actually two *completely independent* shielded pairs in a single jacket: the two pairs have individual and unrelated shields. So what you basically have is a two-channel snake run to each location (which is very cool indeed).

If you strip it back, you'll see the two separate pairs, each with its own separate foil shield and drain wire. You definitely want to keep the two pairs separate: use each for a separate mic line. If you try to combine them, you'll lose the benefit of a balanced, shielded pair, and noise will definitely make its way in. For a balanced pair to work properly, both signal conductors have to reside within a single shield (so that they both experience the exact same electical environment).

Pair #1 is the red/black pair. The shield for that pair would go to pin 1 of the first XLR, red (hot) to pin 2, black (cold) to pin 3.

Pair #2 is the white/green pair. The shield for that would go to pin 1 of the second XLR, white (think white-hot!) to pin 2, green to pin 3.

Viola': two completely independent mic runs in a single cable. Everybody wins.

Starquad has 4 insulated conductors inside a *single shield*- two of one color, two of another. They are laid up in alternating colors, dark/light/dark/light, like a 4-pointed star (thus the starquad name), and then twisted. This layup does provide benefits in noise immunity for really critical mic runs- but that's not what you have there... What you have is twice as many mic lines as you probably thought you had!
 
alpha 2466C

Skippy,
It seems that there is only one drain wire for both sets.
Am I combining the two?
The gauge of the wire seems like it is the same as the other wires stripped.
I figured that the wire was for an older 4 wire mic connector? I dunno?
A buddy of mine gave me about 500' of the stuff so I figured I would put it to good use. Its thin, and sheilded, good stuff for cable in a studio snake.
I have run enough cable to use each run on its own channel.

Thanks,


Gidman
 
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That's odd- the Alpha web site states that each pair should have its own drain wire. It also shows a single drain for an overall shield, but I think that's a mistake- my (ancient!) hardcopy Alpha catalog describes that part number as "2 individually shielded pairs with no overall shield".

http://209.208.232.71/pages/234.cfm

Well, whatever you've got is whatever you've got! If you have a drain wire for each pair, use that drain wire. Otherwise, you'd end up sharing the shield between the two pairs. I've never seen multipair with common shield drains, but that doesn't mean it's not happening...
 
Alpha 2466C

Skippy,
Since I ran enough cable to use each as its own channel.
I just cut the red and green and kept them as spares, and used the red black and drain...works fine. My rane headphone amp is giving me some hum, but the incoming signal is clear.
I really appreciate your input skippy thanks a billion...

Gidman
 
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