Patchbay Wiring?

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fucanay

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 18, 2005
Messages
490
Location
Hayward, CA
I just got a few switchcraft TT patchbays from some friends that were doing a studio wiring overhaul. Currently, I have no patchbays hooked up and I need some help wiring them. It's pretty confusing to me right now.

I want to connect my unbalanced inserts to the patchbay and be able to connect to balanced gear.

This is what I have, but isn't working completely.

insert.png


gear.png


It kind of works, but on one of the gear plugs it only works if the plug is half way in.

Any advice?

Matt
 
Fucanay,

From your drawing it appears that you have the send from the board wired to the ring of the patchbay. Is this correct? I have heard that some Soundcraft, and perhaps others, are wired this way. Mine, and most I've seen are tip=send? What brand and model of board do you have?
 
It also appears that in your second diagram that the "hot" is wired to the ring of the patchbay. i am, however, assuming that the red line is the "hot". If that is so, then connecting an unbalanced peice of gear will connect the sleeve of the unbalanced incorrectly. Are my assumptions correct? I'm a bit confused by where the plus and minus fall, over on the right side of diagram two.
 
Sorry bout that. I have a Soundtracs MRX 32 and the inserts are wired ring send, tip receive. This being my first console, I didn't know that this was less common, so i didn't mention it. Thanks for the heads up.

I edited the picture to show the + and - in more proper locations. I have the ring as negative and the tip as positive.

Matt
 
[quote author="fucanay"]Sorry bout that. I have a Soundtracs MRX 32 and the inserts are wired ring send, tip receive. This being my first console, I didn't know that this was less common, so i didn't mention it. Thanks for the heads up.

Matt[/quote]

Quite alright! I didn't know it was ever done that way till I read it on here. I think the problem might lay in the wiring of your "gear i/o" points.
Normally, I would wire a TRS jack with the "hot" to tip, the "cold" to ring, and ground to sleeve. That way when you plug a TS "unbalanced" plug into
the jack, the"cold" is tied to ground. Are yours done this way? Is the red wire in diagram two "hot" or "cold"?

edit:spelling
 
It think I may have figured it out.

In diagram one, regardless of how your board is wired, doesn't the "hot" of the send need to appear at the tip of the jack? So that when you plug any standard piece of gear in, particularly unbalanced, the signal appears at the bay on the tip contact. Yep, I'm pretty sure the red wire on the top jack of diagram one needs to be wired to tip of the jack. That would explain it working at half-inserted. Also, move the normal down to the
"tip breaks" contact.
 
That might be my problem actually. These are TT patchbays, so I don't have the option of using and unbalanced plug. Maybe I need to do something on the gear side of things, but I'm not sure that I'll want to alter factory stuff. The stuff I build is not an issue though.

Matt
 
[quote author="43hertz"]It think I may have figured it out.

In diagram one, regardless of how your board is wired, doesn't the "hot" of the send need to appear at the tip of the jack? So that when you plug any standard piece of gear in, particularly unbalanced, the signal appears at the bay on the tip contact. Yep, I'm pretty sure the red wire on the top jack of diagram one needs to be wired to tip of the jack. That would explain it working at half-inserted. Also, move the normal down to the
"tip breaks" contact.[/quote]

Ahh, I'll try that. It makes sense now. I wired it up assuming that everything was normal with the way the inserts are wired on the console. But from what you're telling me, I actually need to have it wired ring send at the console to tip send on the patchbay. And then everything else as standard.

Like this?

insert2.png


I'll give it a go tonight and see if that works. I'm only doing one at a time until I can insure that it works the way it should.

Thanks

Matt
 
What you've done looks a bit strange to me.

For the inserts I connect the screen to the cold pin & do not connect to the sleeve at all. The hot is connected to the tip

For the balanced pieces of gear I just wire as normal TRS. With unbalanced pieces of gear I wire hot to tip & screen to sleeve.

I have found this sytem to work well & be noise free.
 
Yeah, my drawing above didn't work. I'm even more confused than ever, but I'll try the drawing moamps provided. These unbalanced inserts are really a pain in the ass. I would have preferred to have separate balanced send/return jacks. Maybe it's a mod I can make to the console, but I'm sure it would involve expensive transformers and lots of work. And what would I get for it other than easier patchbay wiring? Bah!

Matt
 
[quote author="fucanay"]Excluding the outboard gear for now, I came up with this wiring scheme. How does it look to you?

patchbay.png


Matt[/quote]

That looks like to me it would work. Signal comes from ring send of the board to tip of patchbay send jack, through the normal to tip of patchbay return jack and back to tip return of board. Don't see how it could not work. :thumb:
 
Excluding the outboard gear for now, I came up with this wiring scheme. How does it look to you?
patchbay.png


That doesn`t look good to me. If you are plugging in balanced outboard gear (wired connected as normal hot = tip, ring = cold, sleeve = ground on patchbay) you will be leaving the cold pin floating. Your ground (from desk insert) should connect to the ring on the patchbay.

With my patchbays I don`t connect to the ground (from the desk insert) to the sleeve on the patchbay at all. I connect outboard gear that is balanced is connected as normal hot = tip, ring = cold, sleeve = ground this seems to work well. If you have some unbalanced outboard gear connect to tip & ring. This way unbalanced or balanced gear will work. I have used this method & have had people comment on how quiet it is.
 
[quote author="Rob Flinn"]
That doesn`t look good to me. If you are plugging in balanced outboard gear (wired connected as normal hot = tip, ring = cold, sleeve = ground on patchbay) you will be leaving the cold pin floating. Your ground (from desk insert) should connect to the ring on the patchbay.

With my patchbays I don`t connect to the ground (from the desk insert) to the sleeve on the patchbay at all. I connect outboard gear that is balanced is connected as normal hot = tip, ring = cold, sleeve = ground this seems to work well. If you have some unbalanced outboard gear connect to tip & ring. This way unbalanced or balanced gear will work. I have used this method & have had people comment on how quiet it is.[/quote]

Thanks for the comments Rob. Do you have the means to draw out a diagram? I read the words and it confuses me a bit. Seeing the connections would help a lot.

Also, my console has a grounding point on the back and I'm wondering if that is going to be useful for this. Any ideas on how to wire that up as well?

Thanks

Matt
 

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