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[Sam Costa]

Yes. Think about a situation where somebody is standing on your cable 10' or so away from the rack, or there's an amp or something on the cable holding it down. Now imagine somebody else walking by and catching their foot on the the cable and yanking. Without a strain relief, what's going to happen to that rack mounted multipin connector?

Even with a strain relief, what's going to happen to the rack if the strain relief's connection point is up on top of a second rack, like in your picture?

Answer those questions in a way that your multipin and the gear in the rack it's in all survives, and your system'll be much more long-lived than if you fail to answer them.

(Hint: an answer is to have the strain relief connection point at the bottom rack, not the top one. That way you won't pull the top rack off/over. There may be more answers, too.)

Dan, I appreciate the reply, but I'll explain as this will be a NON issue for me. First in all my years of engineering and setup sound and stages I've never had anyone ever yank a cable from it's fixed location (ie speakon, electrical, xlr, etc) especially a multicore cable, the reason for this is I never EVER leave home without my gaff and carpet to place over the cabling to not only minimize on such mishaps of someones foot accidentally getting caught on the cable or otherwise, it doesn't happen on my stages. Third, the top case is fixed to the bottom case which houses all my patch cabling, connectors, splitters, misc cables, etc, it's heavy and I always setup my digital racks right behind the FOH speakers so that it's not only in the most secure place but also a location that none of the musicians on stage ever go to or people in general. If they are not setup directly behind the FOH audio then it is placed behind a stage near a corner or off to the side where nobody is allowed and that only I have access to and the cables all follow behind the stage to their locations for the musicians. I keep a pretty tidy stage. I understand your saying though..

Example:


All cabling strung across the stage, what you dont see here is that after this I placed Safcord carpet on top of those wedge siamese cables, that was done after this photo. This particular event the digital rack (prior to the multipin project was done) was placed right behind the subs and nobody was allowed in that area expect for me and the musicins:

[Scott Holtzman]

Dan, I appreciate the reply, but I'll explain as this will be a NON issue for me. First in all my years of engineering and setup sound and stages I've never had anyone ever yank a cable from it's fixed location (ie speakon, electrical, xlr, etc) especially a multicore cable, the reason for this is I never EVER leave home without my gaff and carpet to place over the cabling to not only minimize on such mishaps of someones foot accidentally getting caught on the cable or otherwise, it doesn't happen on my stages. Third, the top case is fixed to the bottom case which houses all my patch cabling, connectors, splitters, misc cables, etc, it's heavy and I always setup my digital racks right behind the FOH speakers so that it's not only in the most secure place but also a location that none of the musicians on stage ever go to or people in general. If they are not setup directly behind the FOH audio then it is placed behind a stage near a corner or off to the side where nobody is allowed and that only I have access to and the cables all follow behind the stage to their locations for the musicians. I keep a pretty tidy stage. I understand your saying though..

Example:


All cabling strung across the stage, what you dont see here is that after this I placed Safcord carpet on top of those wedge siamese cables, that was done after this photo. This particular event the digital rack (prior to the multipin project was done) was placed right behind the subs and nobody was allowed in that area expect for me and the musicins:

You set a neat stage, nice job.  Is that your stage?

[Sam Costa]

You set a neat stage, nice job.  Is that your stage?

Thanks Scott.
The first photo is my stage, the stage on the second and third photos was supplied by the Fairmont in San Jose.

[Caleb Dueck]

You set a neat stage, nice job.

Agreed, congrats. 

[James Paul]

Congrats Sam on your relatively rapid and successful endeavor. Nice and tidy rack and stage pics.
A comment and subsequent question for the community at large inspired by your mult-ipin assemblies.
The in-line female to chassis male connectors of your build would be the reverse of the long held established convention of signal flow path of gender discreet connectors of the LK, W1/W2, ITT CANNON, JAE or DDK variants. WW MASS aside, curious as to what and how others round about here practice and preach in regards to gender. Of mulit-pin assemblies of course. wink wink

[Sam Costa]

Agreed, congrats.

Thanks man. Appreciate it.

[Brian Bolly]

The in-line female to chassis male connectors of your build would be the reverse of the long held established convention of signal flow path of gender discreet connectors of the LK, W1/W2, ITT CANNON, JAE or DDK variants. WW MASS aside, curious as to what and how others round about here practice and preach in regards to gender. Of mulit-pin assemblies of course. wink wink

The only one I know of whose "standard" is non-conforming as well is Ramlatch (Ramtech, also these days Entertainment Manufacturing Group, also formerly for a hot minute Six-2).  On those the factory "standard" is panel mount females, line mount males.  I know some companies follow differently for these connectors, but each to his/her own.

Sidebar question/non-sequitur: does anyone know if Ramtech is still in biz, or if Rambo is living out the retirement life on the beach?  I figured all that stuff was built by EMFG these days, but his website(s) is/are still around, although not updated in the last 8+ years.

[Riley Casey]

I've had an email advert from Rambo in the last six months under the Ramtech flag so he's still soliciting business under that name. He hadn't toned down the cheesy motorcycle parts shop advertising motif it seems.

Sidebar question/non-sequitur: does anyone know if Ramtech is still in biz, or if Rambo is living out the retirement life on the beach?  I figured all that stuff was built by EMFG these days, but his website(s) is/are still around, although not updated in the last 8+ years.

[John Sulek]

Sidebar question/non-sequitur: does anyone know if Ramtech is still in biz, or if Rambo is living out the retirement life on the beach?  I figured all that stuff was built by EMFG these days, but his website(s) is/are still around, although not updated in the last 8+ years.

Rambo is still around and running Ramtech. He brought me some parts when I had a show near him last year and I had an email conversation with him before everything shut down. It seems to me he lets the folks at <www.emfgrp.com> deal with all the manufacturing while he does sales/support.

Stay safe out there!

[Tim McCulloch]

Rambo is still around and running Ramtech. He brought me some parts when I had a show near him last year and I had an email conversation with him before everything shut down. It seems to me he lets the folks at <www.emfgrp.com> deal with all the manufacturing while he does sales/support.

Stay safe out there!

It's an interesting relationship.  When AMP discontinued the AMP Latch, Rambo bought the rights from AMP for that product and the pin blocks it uses.  The contacts are the same as used in the AMP CPC and a few other designs... and for some time he was building everything in house.  After a few years RamLatch stopped building complete assemblies in house and a new fabrication company (located in the same industrial park) started up, ran for a couple of years or so, and then closed... only to have another one pop up shortly after.  Entertainment Metals (or whatever they're called today) is the latest and possibly the best of them.

Of the various multi pin connectors we like the RamLatch for simplicity, lots of work room, and the possibility of field repair.  Compared to a W4, it's a cake walk... But it's big, bulky and not as rugged as some of the newer products out there.  That we've got a bunch of legacy analog snakes that use them, we're unlikely to change (no matter how sexy some of the LinkUSA connectors are).

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