Time to cable up.... questions abound.

[Michael Jones]

OK. Its time for me to start my wall plates and some audio cableing as the electricans are almost done with rough-in.

I have troughs in my slab which will have cover plates on them and will be used to route the cables under the floor from the console to the individual wall plates.

I have done some research, and have decided to use Canare cables.
I have a local distributor with a heafty stock in all kinds of colors and flavours to choose from. In particular, I'm looking at the Canare Star Quad cables. These are sheilded cables with 4 wires in them - 2 white ones, and 2 blue ones. For an XLR microphone connection I was told by the distributor to tie the white ones together, and tie the blue ones together. Then tie the colored wires to pin one and two, and tie the sheild to pin three. Does that sound right? I've never used the "Star Quad" cables before.

 

[knightfly]

Shield goes to pin ONE - 2 and 3 are for the blue and white.

 

[Michael Jones]

Shield goes to pin ONE - 2 and 3 are for the blue and white.

OK, see that's what I thought. I just wanted to make sure!

 

[longsoughtfor]

Michael - your selection of the Canare Cable piqued my interest so I checked their site and found this:

 

[Michael Jones]

That's cool LSF!!!
Pictures are good!!
Thanks.

 

[Scinx]

Just a tip..
Make sure you get the 1 and 2 pins right as these pins are mirror images between the M and F connectors. If you follow the Canare diagram for both M and F connectors you will be building a buzz machine.

 

[knightfly]

Excellent point - be sure and follow the pin #'s as marked on the XLR connectors, NOT the picture. For any cables that go from XLR to TRS, be sure pin 2 of the XLR is tied to the center conductor (tip) of the TRS connector.

For studio work where minimal stress will be applied to connectors, I personally like the Neutrik connectors - quick and painless to solder, good strain reliefs, re-usable without bending thin metal parts...

Been awhile since I bought them, but at one time music emporium had the NP3C (TRS Neutrik) for about a buck less than most other places -

OK, that SUCKS - just tried Music Emporium's site, and they're now part of the EVIL GC empire - freakin' URL came up "Musicians Fiend" - and their retarded search engine (a V-8, missing on 9 cylinders) came up with SQUAT. Might check Full Compass or Markertek - Steve

 

[frederic]

Michael,

Another good thing to do is decide on your "standard" right now, before you solder anything.

I would make the blue pair signal + (tip)

and the white pair signal -

Or the reverse, it doesn't really matter, as long as your consistant pair to pair, both ends, all the way through. Makes troubleshooting down the road much easier.

Is your cable individual cables for each balanced pair, or is it a snake, usually with the individual jacketed balanced pairs numbered on the jacket?

Either way, you want to label them every 3-4 feet with a label maker and wrap transparent tape over that to make sure the labels stay put. This way not only are the ends labeled, but every so often in the middle, so when you lift your trough covers up you can see what is what.

Put it all into a chart, spreadsheet, etc, and put it in your studio run-book, as well as a copy on the inside of your studio desk on the side panel, near your patch bays. Same for the gear in the back area of the room - put the same page of documentation inside the cabinet.

I have always labeled balanced pairs by numbers, and snake sheathing by letters, so A1-24 is snake A, B1-24 is snake B, etc.

A cheap brother label maker will make it easy to label, and again, wrap transparent tape over it otherwise eventually the brother labels will dry up, fall off, and not help you in five years when you need them.

Another thing I do when soldering patch bays, especially the TT ADC bays because things are so cramped (144 jacks in 1U? Holy schite!), is when trimming things back, slide over a 2" piece of heat shrink tubing thats a little larger than the TRS cable (snake member if you have a multi-pair snake), then after all your soldering is done on that particular bay, you slide all the heat shrink tubing over the solder connections so they are covered as well as the individual snake member. Do this for all of them, then using a heat gun shrink everything at once, then you're bay solder joints are protected and can handle a little flexing/movement of the cable without immediately fracturing at the solder joint.

Heat shrink tubing is fairly inexpensive, and a decent heat gun is about $40 or thereabouts. Also, this helps protect against "fiddling" behind the bay, with something that conducts electricity, such as a slim screwdriver.

Because you know, you're going to short two jacks together - one driving 500W RMS monitors, the other being an AES/EBU input

 

[frederic]

I use a more expensive unit, but I've had it for more than a decade since i used to use this type of device in a data center, labeling zillions of cables. But, this is what I'm describing, and $50 isn't bad at all, price wise.

I generally use white tape with black lettering, though red tape with white lettering looks nice as well, there certainly are enough color combinations to choose from, thats for sure.

here ya go:

http://www.staples.com/Catalog/Browse/Sku.asp?PageType=1&Sku=489928

If you get really bored you could label your cats, your wife, your kids, and their toys

 

[longsoughtfor]

frederic wrote:

A cheap brother label maker will make it easy to label, and again, wrap transparent tape over it otherwise eventually the brother labels will dry up, fall off, and not help you in five years when you need them.

I really wish I had done this. The floor behind my console is littered with labels.

Cheers
Kevin.

 

[frederic]

I really wish I had done this. The floor behind my console is littered with labels.

I learned that in 1993, when a server-based data center I managed lost its HVAC and was running hot... real hot... reached about 85ish, and I had 14,000 sq feet of such labels littered at the bottoms of all the cabinets.

 

[Michael Jones]

Hey, thanks guys - some great tips here!

But they all just bring up more questions.
And it lets me really show off my ignorance!
I can solder pretty good, and I'm confidant in doing this, but I've never made mic cables, and I don't want to make any mistakes.

The "sheild" goes to pin ONE. But the sheild isn't a nice little insulated wire like the blue and white. Its this braided sleeve that goes around the whole cable. So what's the preferred method for soldering this to pin one?
Do you just gather up some of the tangled, torn and frayed ends, stick a glob of solder on them and pin one? That can't be good!

Or do you like split the braid open down one side gather it up on the other, twist it up into a wire shape, pre-solder that then fit it into pin one and solder the joint?

Or am I missing something alltogether?

Wall Panels:
I've seen homemade jobs consisting of blank rack panels that have been drilled out, and I've seen some nice stainless custom plates with the connections labeled. I guess either one would work ok, but I think I'd like to make my own wall plates out of the same kind of wood as the trim work.
But how would you label those? I was thinking I could get some nice little brass tags - like.... does anyone here have an antique armoire? Any of them have brass tags in them, on the shelves, that say things like "Shirts" , "Ties", "Socks"? Get some of those made up to say "Mic 1", "Line 1".. et al.
That would look nice huh? Not too shabby, anyway? (Think Carriage House".)

OK now I'm going to really shine in all of my splendid ignorance of wall plates:

The idea behind these and cable troughs is to NOT have cables strewn across the control room floor and to be able to maintain isolation from CR to other rooms. No open doors to pass cables through. Right?
If a cable goes bad, you lift up the floor plates, and disconnect it at the console. You go to the wall plate, unscrew the connector, cut the cable and use that cable to pull in a new one - then resolder the connections, and yes frederic, re-label the cable.

All of that involves tearing into the wall panel though.
Given that, is it a dumb idea to have wall plates on both sides of the wall?
Come out of the trough in the CR and tie into a wall plate on that side. Solder connections to a wall plate on the recording room side, then if a cable goes bad, you just lift the floor plates to replace it, and don't have to tear into the wall plate itself?
Dumb idea?

 

[frederic]

I can solder pretty good, and I'm confidant in doing this, but I've never made mic cables, and I don't want to make any mistakes.

No problem, I can appreciate one asking many questions before embarking on something that is easily messed up, even by professionals.

The "sheild" goes to pin ONE. But the sheild isn't a nice little insulated wire like the blue and white. Its this braided sleeve that goes around the whole cable. So what's the preferred method for soldering this to pin one?

Do you just gather up some of the tangled, torn and frayed ends, stick a glob of solder on them and pin one? That can't be good![/QUOTE]

If you strip the insulation off its not torn or frayed, just lightly tangled, and you group them, then twist them together gently, tin them, and solder them onto the connector. Remember that stranded wire is multiple tiny wires swirled together - which you just created by gently twisting the shielding wires together into one bundle. Just don't overcook them when soldering, because the heat will travel back into the shielding thats covered by the sheathing, and the insulation of the twisted pairs.

I like to bunch them, twist them gently into a wire, tin them, tin the connector, then make the joint that way.

That would look nice huh? Not too shabby, anyway? (Think Carriage House".)

That would be really sweet looking... definately a gorgeous finishing touch.

OK now I'm going to really shine in all of my splendid ignorance of wall plates:

resolder the connections, and yes frederic, re-label the cable.

side, then if a cable goes bad, you just lift the floor plates to replace it, and don't have to tear into the wall plate itself?
Dumb idea? [/B]

I don't think it is a bad idea, but it will multiple your soldering joints by an awful lot... but its a good idea.

Do know however if you make good solder joints, put on heat shrink tubing, and don't knock them around a lot (since you have them in a trough, this is no a problem) the mount of cable replacement you'll have to do will be very minimal.

Most cables go bad due to the ends being moved, wiggled, etc. Like guitar cords... how many times do we all cut back 6" and resolder the plug back on?

 

[Scinx]

I use a sewing needle to unbraid the shield (doesnt cut the shield, keep slivers out of my fingers). Twist it all up, tin it, and solder it in. In order to get to that point - I use an exacto knife and cut the jacket (rubber), flex it to open the crease up, and then slide the jacket off. Using other tools was cutting my shield