Tom Baldwin Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 Does anyone know of a good low-profile (depth) solution for terminating Cat 5 to panel mounted XLR5 connectors? I'm aware of the Neutrik PCBsbut these are quite deep, and there's no way they'd fit in a standard electrical box, for example when fitted to something like these. What I'd really like is something absolutely identical to the Neutrik Ethercons with IDC termination - except for an XLR5 instead of the actual Ethercon part. The only way I could see of using standard electrical boxes would be:- have custom plates manufactured (punched for A or B series Neutriks, not D series, because Neutrik only appear to make vertical XLR5s in A and B series, not the D series)- make custom PCBs to take Vertical A or B 5 pin XLRs and 2x Krone 4 Way PCB Connection Modules (6048/1/001/04), all mounted on the same side of the board ====== -- | | -- | | | | | | | | | | | | ---------------------- (that's a punchdown block, an XLR, and another punchdown block). Which is possible, but a bit of a pain. The cleaner alternative would be to use something like the Canford wall box range, although they seem quite large just for 2 or 4 XLRs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianl Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 Why cant you solder the cable to the XLR? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.elsbury Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 Theoretically, one isn't supposed to solder solid cat5 as it is far too easy to break. Also if doing installations in the field, a krone punchdown is much quicker and more solid. (2c) David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomHoward Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 It's a difficult one, because you can get XLR3 with IDC straight on the connector (NC3FAY), screw terminals (NC3FD-S-1-B), and so on and so forth, but nothing less than the 47mm depth for the IDC/Cat5 socket XLR5s. I've seen installations where standard solder XLR5s have had short 50mm-ish tails soldered on (presumably on the workbench), and joined with 3A (or smaller if you can find it) terminal block on site - so no soldering at the top of ladders needed. Not as neat as a custom PCB or IDC connector solution but not too bad - nice and cheap too. Also, just to mention - Penn Elcom knock out punched D-plates for electrical boxes much cheaper than the canford ones - £2.40 compared to over £10 from Canford for the 2-gang one - link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Germaine Posted April 15, 2012 Share Posted April 15, 2012 I take it you only need a couple as opposed to 100, making a custom solution too expensive? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Baldwin Posted April 15, 2012 Author Share Posted April 15, 2012 Germaine, when you say custom, do you mean asking Neutrik to create (say) an NC5MD-AY connector? Or something else?Quantities are 12 of each sex, which I can't imagine would excite any manufacturer for a custom order. Following on from the ideas here (and some other links found on the Blue Room), at the moment I'm leaning towards using Penn's 4-hole A series plate (seems to be a bit of an orphan in their product range - loads of D-series plates, and a solitary A-series plate), with vertical PCB mount connectors and Krone blocks on a custom PCB. I also needed to make up some larger facility panels, with a mix of audio and DMX on them. This discussion lead me to look at Front Panel Express's pricing, and it seems that the money I save by moving from DL-series to A-series connectors is more than enough to pay for the custom panels from FPE. (Which also means that sound get IDC termination on their XLRs as well, so I think we can avoid any soldering on site). Thanks for the help - I'll try to post pictures in a few months time once we actually get all of this installed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.