Question about wiring up a patchbay.

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jmpizzoferrato
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Question about wiring up a patchbay.

Post by jmpizzoferrato » Tue Apr 25, 2006 6:11 pm

i am starting to wire up my new space and have a patchbay that requires soldering. all of the cabling is there, i'm just switching 8 bal. 1/4" to 8 XLRs. i've never dealt with one of these before.

i clipped the 1/4" jacks off and soldered on the XLRs like so:

ground to pin 1 and jumped to pin 2. hot and cold to pin 3.

i sent a test tone to buss 2 and patched buss 2 to tape input 2. when i physically made the patch, the level showing up on buss 2 went away and nothing showed up on the tape machine meter. i listened to the return of the tape machine and i could only hear a faint tone. i tried a couple of different combos but none worked. they all did the same thing.

tomorrow i plan on soldering the ground to pin 1, hot to 2 and cold to 3. will this solve my problem? i know this is rudimentary but it's somewhat new to me. thanks!
-justin

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Mark Alan Miller
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Post by Mark Alan Miller » Wed Apr 26, 2006 12:04 am

By connecting hot and cold to one pin, they cancel out each other (in a balanced system the hot and cold signals are polarity inverted versions of each other, usually...)
No, you need to do what you suspect: Ground = Pin 1 (="Sleeve" on 1/4" TRS) Hot = Pin 2 (="Tip") and Cold = Pin 3 (="Ring").

No offence, please, but where did you get that hot-and-cold-to-pin-3 idea?
he took a duck in the face at two and hundred fifty knots.

http://www.radio-valkyrie.com/ao/aoindex.htm - download the new record (free is an option!) or get it on CD.

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