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cgarges
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Post by cgarges » Mon May 12, 2008 6:37 pm

Got back to work today. Rob was feeling better, so he climbed under the console and finished up the buss wiring:
Image


I started out my day by ordering a few more ELCO connectors and an ELCO pin pusher from Newark. Once I got to Rob's, I decided to dive into some of the patchbay work.

I tore into the patchbay and realized that all the cable was tired together with stuff intertwined and woven together. I decided that the best thing to do to be able to move a few of those things around was to disconnect a few things I would be moving anyway and see if I could make the wiring any neater.
Image


One thing that I did discover in the process is that Amek used multi-pair cable that isn't numbered. So if I disconnect any of this stuff in large groups, I'm screwed for figuring out what goes to what. I'm astounded that that is the case, but it's true. The connectors are numbered at the bottom panel with these little number tags, but not at the bay. Rob came to the rescue with some electricians' labels that I affixed to the appropriate cabling before pulling those patch points. I tore into that gigantic project and got so far as to do the aux rewiring that I wanted, which involved making mults for each of the aux sends (so that aux one has two patch points, aux two has two patch points, etc.), cutting the normalling to corresponding outboard gear, moving the primary headphone amp patch points to those positions, and then normalling auxes five and six to the main stereo inputs of the primary headphone amp. I'm starting to make a little space and am working towards making it neater.
Image


Here are the completed aux mults:
Image


Here are those two oscilliscopes. The one on the left is a BK. Not too sure about the one on the right:
Image


Tomorrow, we rivet the extra XLR connectors in place on the bottom panel and Rob starts on the phase reverse switch mod while I continue working on the patchbay rewiring... Namely the tape machine normalling.

It's a lot of work, but it's going to be so worth it.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

cgarges
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Post by cgarges » Tue May 13, 2008 6:35 pm

Got the new XLRs riveted to the bottom of the console today. The black ones are AES and time code connectors, the silver ones are audio, except for two four-pin connectors that are meter bridge power and talkback remote.

Here they are, looking up at the bottom of the console:
Image

Here they are, looking down into the patchbay bucket:
Image


I spent the rest of the day re-assembling the patchbay properly. I finished up the tape machine output to line-in normalling that had to be re-routed because of the module position change. I'll put the rest of the line-in connectors in the proper places tomorrow. Also got all the aux send, aux return, and primary headphone amp jacks put in place.

I got fed-up with the bays moving around when screwing the connectors back in place that I screwed the patchbay into the rack upside-down to work on it:
Image


Got my Newark order in today (more ELCOs), so tomorrow, I'll be installing the last two ELCO connectors in the bottom of the console and wiring all those additional connectors into the bays. Rob will get started testing the phase reverse mod and is also ordering additional cable to rebuild the PSU cable since we're putting it 30 feet away from the console in another room. I'm also having him order one red and one blue 12-volt LED, to see how they work (and look) in the channel mute switches.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

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Post by Nate Dort » Tue May 13, 2008 7:41 pm

cgarges wrote:Here are those two oscilliscopes. The one on the left is a BK. Not too sure about the one on the right:
Image
The one on the right is a Tektronix (looks like a 7603), with what looks like two 7A26 modules and a 7B53A module.

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Post by snatchman » Wed May 14, 2008 1:16 pm

Great job Chris... :P ...Dang...my head's hurting looking at the all that work you all are doing..... :? ...I'm sure it'll be well worth it tho!....Good luck... 8)

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Post by drumsound » Wed May 14, 2008 4:14 pm

AES in the console? Is that just to make it come up in the bay?

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Post by mjau » Wed May 14, 2008 4:16 pm

Awesome hat.

cgarges
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Post by cgarges » Wed May 14, 2008 9:05 pm

drumsound wrote:AES in the console? Is that just to make it come up in the bay?
Yep. AES connectors for the RADAR, both Masterlinks, and the DAT deck will come up in the bay.

I'm down to one side of one bay left to wire. That's the side that the AES connectors will be attached to, plus the ProTools Digi 002 I/Os and other two-track stuff (DAT deck, cassette deck, PC audio, CD player, etc.), which will appear on two ELCO connectors on the bottom of the console. Those get assembled tomorrow and soldered into the bay, at which point, I can put the bays back together. All the other patchbay work is done. All the studio's outboard stuff is on three additional bays that we're not selling with the old console, so those will be installed on-site.
Image


Today, Rob tried to locate some appropriate replacement for the longer PSU cable that we'll need to make. He also started work on the phase reverse modification.

I also spent some time today trying to track down replacement covers for the patchbay labels. Just the little plastic strips, not the entire assemblies (Swtchcraft part number tt503). The best I could find was one dealer who could order them and get them in 6-8 weeks. Bleh.

Anyway, here's another shot of the console today.
Image

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

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Post by channelcat » Thu May 15, 2008 12:01 pm

[/quote]I also spent some time today trying to track down replacement covers for the patchbay labels. Just the little plastic strips, not the entire assemblies (Swtchcraft part number tt503). The best I could find was one dealer who could order them and get them in 6-8 weeks. Bleh.[/quote]

Chris, did you contact Gepco?

The console's really coming together nicely! Thanks for the pics and regular updates.

Take care,
Stu
Fearless Vampire Killer

http://www.stereophonicstudios.com

cgarges
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Post by cgarges » Thu May 15, 2008 9:27 pm

channelcat wrote:Chris, did you contact Gepco?
I called, but the Southeast regional rep was at lunch. Because no one there was interested in taking my money, I looked into further options in the mean time and found a solution--kind of.

Switchcraft was very helpful and I didn't realize they have a dealer stock page on their website. Through this, I was able to find out that a company called Switching Devices (in Burbank) had 19 of them in stock for half the price my local dealer quoted me, so I ordered all that they had. I think Rob (www.rfiaudio.com) is going to order a bunch of them to always have some in stock, since apparently no one else in the country is into this.

Anyway, I did the last bit of patchbay re-assembly and tested the points and the first channel of phase reverse mods. The phase reverse mod worked great and most of the patchbay stuff I did also worked great. One set of points did not, partially because of some bent tt jacks that weren't un-doing the normalling when patched and partially because I screwed-up and got some of the points confused because of how the manual had them labeled. I just got two sets of points backwards and now the main and backup headphone amps will be reversed on the bottom points of the console. This doesn't mean anything except that I'll now have to put male XLR ends on the headphone send cables. No big deal. I did also do six points of normalling wrong and had to re-do those (half-normalled that should have been fully-normalled). But all the buss routing and channel relocation stuff worked out fine. We also tested all the two-track outs, monitor outs, and oscillator out.

I also dug into the Digi 002 ELCO connector and got that almost finished. I just need to seat the pins into the connector and attach that to the bottom of the console. Once I do the other ELCO (with DAT, cassette, computer I/O, etc.) and attach that to the bottom of the console, the pacthbay work will be done. Once I get me designation strip covers in, I can label them, which will be mega-helpful. We also got our 35-foot PSU cables ordered.

When I left today, Rob had four more channels of phase reverse mods done and suspected he could probably get four or five more done before he left today. He might be able to get it all knocked-out tomorrow and then he's going to start checking out the condition of the electrolytic caps to see if they need to be replaced yet.

The console moving team is in place for next Sunday. Depending on what kind of schedule I've got next week, I may need to finish up RADAR ELCO snakes and a few outboard-type cables after the console's moved in, but I didn't book any sessions until June, so that I'd have some time to sort things out. Looking good. I'm out of town for a friend's wedding tomorrow, off to a gig in Raleigh with Mitch, Shalini, and Dixon on Saturday, so no more console updates on my end until Monday.

Sorry I didn't take any pictures today. Things didn't really look any different.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

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Post by Nate Dort » Fri May 16, 2008 5:39 am

cgarges wrote:
channelcat wrote:Chris, did you contact Gepco?
I called, but the Southeast regional rep was at lunch. Because no one there was interested in taking my money...
I've had the same problems with Gepco. They've got a nice RFQ section on their website to get prices via email, but they've been very hit-or-miss about responding to requests. I finally said "screw it" and went with a different manufacturer after basically being ignored a few times.

cgarges
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Post by cgarges » Mon May 19, 2008 5:00 pm

Nothing asthetic, so no pictures, but big progress today.

I finished up all the patchbay wiring, which is a big relief. Rob also finished up the phase reverse mods, fixed one of the seemingly-broken LED meters (just a dirty connection), tested some meter/routing stuff, and replaced a few of the missing latches on the locking switches. Everything's going really well. We should have the rest of our ordered parts (PSU cable, patchbay designation strip covers, mute switch LEDs, etc.) by Wednesday and hopefully, I'll get all the extension cable stuff done or near-done tomorrow. I think Rob plans to assess caps and fix the left VU meter tomorrow after we bolt the two extra ELCOs into place under the patchbay.

Thanks for all the support. We're super excited!

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

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Post by cgarges » Tue May 20, 2008 6:05 pm

Again, no photos today, simply because I forgot my camera, but Rob and I bolted the extra ELCO connectors to the bottom of the patchbay panel and I screwed all the console bays into place. At current, all the console wiring is done. I'm SO happy about this. I did put the rest of the patchbay cover panels in place (even though the three individual single-spaced ones will be replaced by the three bays of outboard gear that we have once it gets to the studio) and the patchbay looks nice and neat.

I spent the rest of today making a few external cable harnesses for our Digi 002 rig and extra 2-tracks (DAT, cassette, etc.) and a few of the XLR cables going to external stuff (cue amps, etc.).

Rob spent most of the day getting caught up on some other clients' stuff, but he did re-cap the master section and discovered that there is a six-week lead time and 20-piece minimum (at $16 each!) on the LED bulbs we wanted to try out on the mute switches. We're looking for other options for that experiment. The 35-foot PSU cable came in today, though.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

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Post by cgarges » Wed May 21, 2008 7:00 pm

Spent today out at the studio pulling our outboard bays out of the Argosy desk that the Ghost was in. Had a guy drive down from West Virginia to buy the Argosy and the console bays. It took a long-ass time to get that stuff out of there, but it's gone now and the control room looks really weird. Now I need to find time to clean up a bit before the new console goes in.

Got my patchbay designation strip covers in today.

More console goodness tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll remember to take some pictures.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

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Post by KennyLusk » Thu May 22, 2008 11:02 am

Chris, are you going to upgrade your Chuck Taylor All Star's too? Or will that song remain the same?
"The mushroom states its own position very clearly. It says, "I require the nervous system of a mammal. Do you have one handy?" Terrence McKenna

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Post by cgarges » Sun May 25, 2008 3:58 pm

Dude, why mess with a perfect thing?

Console got moved into its new home today. It's sitting prettily in place. The full story and pictures will come later.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

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