I have yet to find an alternative to the edac crimp tool. If you need one go buy one or rent a crimp machine. :twisted: Those machines rent out all the time in town and use a special belt fed pin much like a machine gun bullet feed you seen in all the movies. Better then the 10K it costs to buy them. Those things are killer and speed up things. Only good when you gotta do a few 1000 pins quickly or to keep from getting carpul tunnel. I have logged thusands of hours with crimp and or solder elco pins. Here is what I have noticed.
If you use the crimp kind, you better find a way that is comfortable to operate the crimp tool as it will give you hand cramps. I usually just rest one handle on my leg and then just push down on the other handle. This has worked for me and a good way to keep from getting carpul(sp) tunnel. Secondly a crimp alone does not make a great connection so a lil dab of solder after you crimp works great. Solder right at the crimp. Keep it clean and neat. I can show you some pics if you like.
With Solder pins you are slightly more flexable as one can reuse them. Here is wha I suggest when soldering. After you solder, Heatshrink the solder connection on all wires as it will make it look good and work great.
Unless your doing a super quick fix never ever solder elco pins in the elco. As stated before one can melt the elco and cause the pin to not sit right. Not a big deal except makes it not work right with the other side.
As far as pinning and de-pinning, There are few ways to go. ON the de-pinn side you gotta use a de-pin tool. I have used small screwdrivers before to remove pins and it was very caveman or bushman like style. That means it worked in a pinch but was ugly and I had to put on a whole new pin. So get a de-pin tool they are kind of expensive but with proper use can last a long time. My first de-pin tool lasted over 10 years and eventually broke when my buddy borrowed it.
We(me and my de-crimp) wired some good studios together. SO you have to have one of them.
As for pinning the elco itself use a small screwdriver. It will work fine and as long as you do not force it you will not do any damage. Make sure you hear that lil click sound so you know your pin is in place otherwise it might come out when attaching it to another elco and you will not have a good connection.
Aside from that, Use standard pinouts as if you ever need to get a cable from the store, It will work with your system. Some consoel compaines like never have their own quirky pinout, Make an elco to elco that converts that to a normal standard for the same reason stated. I usually will do no more the 24 channels per elco and usually use 90 pin elcos. I still follow the standard pinout just leave out channels 25 and up on each elco.
Lastly always good to have on hand extra single cables made of connector to elco that way when your wiring up a rack and need to swap gear you can do so with ease.
I also suggest doing this, Wiring the outboard racks to an elco mounted in the back of the rack. THe do an elco to elco cable all the way to the console. If you ever had to move, you would then just need to make another elco to elco. Same goes tape machines, mic pannels and such. This keeps it completely modular. Now some may argure about the sonics and doing to many connectors but screw that as I have yet to have anyonje complaign about it sounding bad.
IF you need pinouts and so forth just ask. I can hook you up with some good diagrams.