So I made this thing....

[Slackmaster2K]

Tonight I finished playing "electrical engineer."

I built a godawful ugly signal splitter for about 15 bucks in parts.

The box has one stereo input in the rear and 4 stereo outputs on the front. Each output has an on/off toggle switch and there is main mute toggle on the top of the box.

I did a horrible job drilling the holes so they're not level...and the toggle switches I got look like something from an old 50's sci-fi movie. Kinda cool really.

Anyway, the point is that I run a patch cable from my soundcard's output into the input of this box. Then to each output on the box I plugged in my monitoring sources....two pair of headphones and two pair of cheap speakers. Prior to making this box I had to reach around an manually plug the various speakers into the soundcard which was a pain in the ass. Now I can switch between sources with little switchs right in front of me. I designed it such that I can select any combination of outputs too which is kind of handy. Basically it's a fully-switched breakout box.

BTW, don't ever let anyone tell you that a soldering iron is easy to use...man I need three hands. The wiring is so damn ugly...but it works and doesn't seem to add any noise (I used shielded cable and a shielded box).

Slackmaster 2000

 

[Richie Basic]

Hey. That rocks! could you please post or email me (araybuck@yahoo.com) slightly more detailed instructions and the parts you need to build the signal splitter? That would be cool. thanks.

 

[Slackmaster2K]

Sure.

First you need a soldering iron (approx. 30 to 40 watt) and a multimeter. If you don't have these yet then get them. They're invaluable for making things like cables and doing cool projects. A multimeter from Radio Shack can be had for 30 bucks and a soldering iron can be had for maybe 10 bucks and up.

Then you need to take a trip down to a REAL electronics store. There's one in just about every town. You'll need to get a small shielded aluminum box...maybe 6" x 4". That'll be about $5 to $10. Then you stereo jacks...I used 1/8" because it's compatible with more of my stuff in this regards. You can also get 1/4" but you'll need a bigger box. 1/8" jacks run about 1 to 2 bucks a piece...get one extra at least. Then you'll need toggle switches of which there are many varieties. (good ones will be about 2.50 a piece) They MUST support two seperate signal paths...I'm no electrician so I don't know the proper terms. The ones that I bought had one set of isolated inputs and 2 sets of dual outputs.

If you get the wrong toggle switches you'll end up combining your left and right channels into one, which is not what you want to do. Or you'll end up only being able to switch your left or right signal which doesn't really help.

Finally you'll need some good silver solder and some wire. I got some shielded wire that had two leads and a ground in one casing (~ $0.10 a foot). One lead for right and one for left.

Start by drilling holes however you want them. I put one switch above each output in the front of the box...approximately 1/2" apart. Make sure you leave adequate room so that everything fits internally.

Then you just need to wire everything up. Using the multimeter's continuity check function, you will be able to determine which posts to wire up where pretty easily. Some things to consider: don't wire your ground to a switch. Leave it free and connected to each output jack otherwise you'll have problems. Just switch the left and right channels simultaneously.

You can split the signal however you want.....you can either run four pairs of seperate wires from the input to each switch...OR (this is what I did) you can run your L&R wires from your input to the inputs on switch one. Then connect the INPUTs on switch one to the inputs on switch two and so on and so forth. Don't connect the outputs or you're wiring in series and your switches won't be independant.

If you simply think things through it's pretty easy. Just make sure to keep the ground free...it should be connected straight from the input to each of the output jacks' ground terminals. Think of it like running water pipes...the L&R signals are your water mains, and ground is your drain.

My next addition to this project will involve volume pots such that I can keep the output on my soundcard at 100% and control the level with the box. There are a lot of things you can do with a glorified Y cable. Remember, you can split a signal but you can't COMBINE two signals into one. Even a simple mixer is much more complicated so start simple.

Ask a lot of questions at the electronics shop! I should really take a picture of this god awful thing and post it.

Slackmaster 2000

 

[Slackmaster2K]

Yeah, I only use mine for computer speakers and headphones...I wouldn't try to directly drive big speakers with my soundcard

And about the silver solder (which is a combination of like silver, lead, & something else)...I was reading in a book called "Sound on Sound Creative Recording" or something (just bought it) and it says to use silver solder because it conducts better and is longer lasting. I'll have to reread that section to make sure I interpreted it correctly.

I think my next project will be an input box with a 4 way toggle switch such that I can switch between 4 seperate inputs (one at a time). I no longer have to reach around to the back of the machine to plug my headphones in, but I still have to reach around to switch from my mixer to my ART MP and whatnot. I'm also going to look into getting a box that can be screwed into a 5 1/4" bay on the computer itself...that'll make things real nice!

By the time I do that I'll probably be able to just afford a good soundcard setup with a real breakout box though

Slackmaster 2000

 

[Dragon]

Great idea, S2K! Just two suggestions from an old hand at this stuff:

1. don't use silver solder for wiring, use electronics solder. I wouldn't go taking yours apart because of this, but they are different. Silver solder is for jewelry and knifemaking and such.

2. If anyone tries this kind of thing for direct speaker outs (it doesn't sound like that's what you did but I want to make sure people know this), set up the switches in such a way that no matter how they're flipped, you still have a proper impedance load (at least 4 ohms, which you can get by using 25 watt resistors) on the amplifier outputs. Otherwise, with no load, your amp can and will burn out rather quickly. It's generally cheaper and easier to buy an actual speaker switching box for that kind of application.