Snake cable

I just picked up 10 feet of 4 pair snake cable to run some xlrs from one place to another and don't know what to do with the drain wire?

All four internal pairs have a 3rd wire, so 4 sets of 3, do i just disregard the single drain wire?

What would it's uses be out of curiosity?

what kind of wire? mogami

Normally connect drain to pin 1 ,so shield is earthed

See, Iknew this would be confusing....

When you cut off the external jacket of this cable, there's 4 sets of 3 wires.

So one of the 3 contained in each, gets used as the ground oneach connector.

There is ALSO a single bare drain wire that's not part of any of the 4 trio's......

What is that one used for, and to make a 4 xlr to 4 xlr cable i just ignore it right?

[quote author="Ptownkid"]
There is ALSO a single bare drain wire that's not part of any of the 4 trio's......

What is that one used for, and to make a 4 xlr to 4 xlr cable i just ignore it right?[/quote]


Yes that is correct. Not sure why they put that there, but it is not needed.

I often use that as a strain relief if the application is a permanent install.
So, if you have a convenient place, tie the multicore up using this wire to prevent any unnecessary bending of the cores. This saves having to run each core from the floor up to a rack, console or whatrever to avoid all of the weight of the multi being placed on the strain reliefs of the connectors (or worse, your solder joints).

I even have little eyelets screwed into the rear of my racks to do this.

If the cable has a foil wrap screen then the bare should be earthed so that the screen is earthed. This drain wire normally is next to the inside of the foil.

far as I remember it's for building snakes with boxes on one end - you connect the 'overall ground' drain wire to the snake box and the ground on channel 1, pin 1....been awhile though.