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[Stan Shields]

Been doing lots of small (16 ch.) indoor and outdoor band gigs. I don't have cable troughs or mats. Every so often I look at my single run of cat5 snake and think "What if this cable was damaged"?  If an analog snake has issues maybe you lose a few channels, if the cat 5 dies, you're done. At the same time, 16 channels is often not enough, I wish I had a few more. I decided to try a strategy that would address both issues. I bought another 100ft. of tactical (shielded) cat5. I built a fan out, Ethercon to four M-xlrs and added a small patch panel with Ethercon and four female xlrs to the stage box. So now I have 20 channels and if the main cat5 snake has issues, I have a backup. It's still small, easy to setup/strike and was cheap.

[Stan Shields]

more pics

[Dan Mortensen]

Been doing lots of small (16 ch.) indoor and outdoor band gigs. I don't have cable troughs or mats. Every so often I look at my single run of cat5 snake and think "What if this cable was damaged"?  If an analog snake has issues maybe you lose a few channels, if the cat 5 dies, you're done. At the same time, 16 channels is often not enough, I wish I had a few more. I decided to try a strategy that would address both issues. I bought another 100ft. of tactical (shielded) cat5. I built a fan out, Ethercon to four M-xlrs and added a small patch panel with Ethercon and four female xlrs to the stage box. So now I have 20 channels and if the main cat5 snake has issues, I have a backup. It's still small, easy to setup/strike and was cheap.

What kind of XLR snake cable are you using? This is important.

[Geoff Doane]

What kind of XLR snake cable are you using? This is important.

I don't think he is using an XLR snake.

This was a bit confusing to me too, the first time I read it.  But I think he bought a second CAT5 (or CAT6) snake to use as a backup, and built adapters to use it for 4 extra analog channels.  If he loses the primary snake, then he can switch to the other one, but of course loses those 4 extra channels.  I gather that the surface has some unused analog I/O that he wants to make use of.

Is that what you are doing, Stan?

GTD

[Stan Shields]

I don't think he is using an XLR snake.

This was a bit confusing to me too, the first time I read it.  But I think he bought a second CAT5 (or CAT6) snake to use as a backup, and built adapters to use it for 4 extra analog channels.  If he loses the primary snake, then he can switch to the other one, but of course loses those 4 extra channels.  I gather that the surface has some unused analog I/O that he wants to make use of.

Is that what you are doing, Stan?

GTD
Yup, my mixer has local mic preamps in addition to those in the stage box so the second run of shielded Cat5 gets me 4 analog pairs and can serve as the primary digital snake (sacrificing the 4 analog lines) if the other run fails. So far, so good...

[TJ (Tom) Cornish]

more pics

Hi Stan - that looks pretty good.  One unrelated note - you have exposed power leads in your rack.  It looks like you have shrink tube over the exposed contacts, but you really should have a metal box that encloses the power side of your rack.  These are reasonably easy to custom make.

You can get 18-ga sheet aluminum at home stores. Layout a 5-sided box with a ruler and a sharpie, and cut it with snips a table saw.

For forming the box, cut a 2x4 to the length of the box, then hand form the box around a 2x4, which is conveniently the right thickness for a 1U rack panel, and fold in the side tabs.  A couple pop rivets or sheet metal screws holding that to your rack rail will secure it nicely.

[Stan Shields]

Hi Stan - that looks pretty good.  One unrelated note - you have exposed power leads in your rack.  It looks like you have shrink tube over the exposed contacts, but you really should have a metal box that encloses the power side of your rack.  These are reasonably easy to custom make.

You can get 18-ga sheet aluminum at home stores. Layout a 5-sided box with a ruler and a sharpie, and cut it with snips a table saw.

For forming the box, cut a 2x4 to the length of the box, then hand form the box around a 2x4, which is conveniently the right thickness for a 1U rack panel, and fold in the side tabs.  A couple pop rivets or sheet metal screws holding that to your rack rail will secure it nicely.

Very cool tip, thanks Tom. I was concerned about that since I would like to store cables inside the rack case.

[Dan Richardson]

Curious as to how exactly you're going from the ethercon to the fanout in the coupler. Did you splice to the leads that went to the other ethercon, or what?

[Steve M Smith]

sacrificing the 4 analog lines if the other run fails.

although if you then transfer the failed cable to the analogue side, you will likely still have three channels working (depending on the severity of the damage).


Steve.

[Stan Shields]

Curious as to how exactly you're going from the ethercon to the fanout in the coupler. Did you splice to the leads that went to the other ethercon, or what?

I used one of these:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=973020&gclid=CMr7ge_SmM0CFRY7gQodpccHvg&Q=&ap=y&m=Y&c3api=1876%2C91438732682%2C&is=REG&A=details

The inline coupler I used for the enclosure comes with two RJ45 females, you could remove one and splice onto the wires, I considered doing that but the wires were fragile. The punchdown blocks are easy to work with and much more reliable, I think. I found a Kellums with an O.D. that fit into the Neutrik D-size plate (I had to open up the hole just a little. These fanout can be bought ready-made too.

[ProSoundWeb Community]