Any advice on racking some Lomo channels?

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Atlanta Bliss

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Joined
Apr 3, 2014
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12
Hi all,

I’ve just bought some mics and as a kind of random purchase from the same vendor in Russia picked up some channel strips that have been taken out of a console.

They are 2 x Zvukotehnika (Lomo Popov Institute of Sound) line level channel strips.  I think they were made in 1979 and are Germanium transistors and input transformer.  There’s attenuation, high and low eq and mid eq with notched eq points. Monitor and aux send.  No mic preamps or phantom power as far as I can tell.  The vendor has sent me a scan of schematics in Russian with various keypoints translated into English, I'm under the impression that everything essential has been translated but I'm not technical so can't be sure.

Anyway so I’m wondering if anyone might have used these or similar or know anything about them?

I was thinking  of using them as a pair to color stuff coming off DAW and track back into the daw.

I would like to try to find a tech that could rack them for me (I’m in London, UK if anyone can recommend someone)  -  I imagine they just need power and inputs and outputs? -  But I’d like to get an idea of what’s involved first, parts needed, likely costs etc.  I posted on the Electrical Audio forum and a forum member suggested someone on this site might advise, my apologies if this is the wrong part of the forum for this type of post.




Any thoughts or ideas greatly appreciated!  Thanks!



p.s.  If you think it’s not worth doing please tell me! Thanks!
 
ssp3 said:
Just post the pics and schematics. I know a bit of  Russian..


Thanks mjripp and ssp3!  Sorry for the delay, I had to down-res the photos to upload them, please let me know if they're illegible. I also had to cut the Diagram photo into 2 parts, hopefully it's clear where they overlap.
Thanks again for taking a look.

 

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photo of badging ---- made in 1979??
 

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  • Zvukotehnika (Lomo Popov Institute of Sound) badging.jpg
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OK, if you have the mating connector or a lot of clip leads you can do a quick test using a 9v battery for power.  Although it is marked +/- 12v, the negative side is actually ground.  9v should be enough to get sound out of it and see if it works.  Wiring as follows:

Balanced input to pins 1a and 1b with shield tied to pin 2a
Unbalanced output is either 4a or 5a with shield to 4b or 5b
The positive (small) terminal of your 9v battery goes to pin 6B
The negative terminal of the 9v goes to pin 7a

You might need to tie pin 7a to pin 7b (chassis)
 
thanks mjrippe!

Is this the mating connector (see attached photo) - ?

So it has balanced input but unbalanced output?

Presuming nothing is broken with these, is there enough info in the schematics and enough pieces that they could be racked up fairly easily? (by someone who knows what they're doing - ie: not me!)  Or is it a big task?  What other parts would be needed? Power supply and a rack and input and output connectors?

thank you again for your very generous help!
 

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Yes, those look like the correct connectors.  So any tech worth their hourly rate would be able to hook them up and test them for you.  For a permanent rackmount solution you should expect to pay more than the cost of the modules (because they were cheap, right?).  The labor (metalwork, power, wiring) involved in racking modules is not insignificant.  If you're a cheap bas***d you can find someone to wire ins and out to those connectors and a wall wart power supply.  Then just sit them on a flat surface and hope nothing shorts out  ;)
 
mjrippe said:
Yes, those look like the correct connectors.  So any tech worth their hourly rate would be able to hook them up and test them for you.  For a permanent rackmount solution you should expect to pay more than the cost of the modules (because they were cheap, right?).  The labor (metalwork, power, wiring) involved in racking modules is not insignificant.  If you're a cheap bas***d you can find someone to wire ins and out to those connectors and a wall wart power supply.  Then just sit them on a flat surface and hope nothing shorts out  ;)


Thanks mjrippe,  I mainly just wanted to know if it was possible, I wasn't missing some crucial part etc.  I'm not a cheap bastard (I swear!) so I'm all for doing it as well as possible, and think anyone that knows how to do this kind of work is a genius and is making the world a better place - and so deserves some decent $$$ for their efforts!  ........ They were very cheap though - got them in addition to some mics as I said - so I guess the gamble / adventure part of the project is deciding if whatever sound they impart is worth the cost of getting them racked.  I'm inclined to try it so am going to look around for someone in London who might want to take it on.

Thank you again for all your advice!
 
Trust me, I understand completely!  My point was actually to make it possible to test them first so you could make a better decision.  The cheap bastard option was not meant to be an insult, just a way to save money ;D
 
mjrippe said:
Trust me, I understand completely!  My point was actually to make it possible to test them first so you could make a better decision.  The cheap bastard option was not meant to be an insult, just a way to save money ;D


Thanks!  I'll let you know how they turn out - might take me a while to get it done though as there are probably a few more pressing uses of $$ in my lab.
 

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