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[Russell Ault]

It's well established that the X32's AES50 implementation requires electrical continuity between EtherCON shells to prevent serious ESD problems. My question is this: has anyone tried to establish this continuity without using end-to-end shielding?

A venue I work at has lots of horizontal UTP in its walls. It's also got analogue tie lines scattered around, tied together at a patch bay. We're considering building a pair of adapters that will let us break the shield off of an STP cable and run it through an available tie line. In theory this would allow us to use the existing UTP while maintaining end-to-end shield continuity. (For the sake of argument, let's assuming that using the UTP to pull STP isn't an option.)

Has anyone tried something like this? I can't think of a reason this shouldn't work, but maybe someone else can?

Thanks!

-Russ

[Tim McCulloch]

It's well established that the X32's AES50 implementation requires electrical continuity between EtherCON shells to prevent serious ESD problems. My question is this: has anyone tried to establish this continuity without using end-to-end shielding?

A venue I work at has lots of horizontal UTP in its walls. It's also got analogue tie lines scattered around, tied together at a patch bay. We're considering building a pair of adapters that will let us break the shield off of an STP cable and run it through an available tie line. In theory this would allow us to use the existing UTP while maintaining end-to-end shield continuity. (For the sake of argument, let's assuming that using the UTP to pull STP isn't an option.)

Has anyone tried something like this? I can't think of a reason this shouldn't work, but maybe someone else can?

Thanks!

-Russ

I was about to say "it doesn't work" but the tested scenario used a dedicated ground wire from mixer chassis to S16 chassis, so I can't say for sure it will fail.  I'd be surprised if it was successful.  The only way to know is to try it, use the "sparker" and see what happens.

edit ps - the LABster that sussed out the AES50/ESD issue was Brian Wynn.  I kind of recall a lot of discussion around Oct - Dec 2013 so you might be able to find the threads where he tried several kludges, none of which was successful.

[Russell Ault]

I'd be surprised if it was successful.

I think I would be too a little, but why? Since the shield is being primarily used for ESD reasons (as opposed to noise reasons; AES50 in general should be happy with UTP), as long as the EtherCON shells are electrically bonded to the 8P8C shells and each other, should it matter how?

edit ps - the LABster that sussed out the AES50/ESD issue was Brian Wynn.  I kind of recall a lot of discussion around Oct - Dec 2013 so you might be able to find the threads where he tried several kludges, none of which was successful.

Thanks for the tip, I'll take a look.

-Russ

[Dan Mortensen]

I have tried it, or at least UTP at one end and STP at the other, and STP with no Ethercon at one end, and it doesn't work.

I don't think of it as a continuity from chassis to chassis issue but rather continuous shield coverage including shell connection to chassis at both ends.

Maybe that's the same thing in most cases, but substituting a drain wire without a shield would meet continuity but not continuous coverage. For example.

And your thing, with a chunk of STP at each end but UTP in the middle with maybe some other kind of connection from Ethercon shell to Ethercon shell in the middle seems like it would be the same as the non-working scenarios.

(When I say "non-working", I mean subject to ESD interference.)

Not sure what would happen if the UTP was in metal conduit with Ethercon shells bonded to the conduit. You can try it and tell us!

[Tim Padrick]

The shield is to "grab" the ESD before it gets to the 8 conductors.  The Ethercon shells tied to the shield are what makes the ESD in the shield dump to ground instead of into the 8 conductors.  The Ethercons shouln't be needed, but it's said that owing to a design error, the shield of the RJ45s don't dump the ESD to ground.

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