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Author Topic: 14 conductor soco?  (Read 2563 times)

E. Lee Dickinson

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14 conductor soco?
« on: June 24, 2007, 12:14:43 AM »

I have 'inherited' 5 100' lengths of soco, but the cable is 12/14.

Am I right in understanding that the standard pinout uses 18 conductors (hot, netural, hot, neutral, etc, until the final 6 grounds on the inner ring)?

Should I spend time and money building fanouts for this (tying grounds together on two pins.. is that legal?) or should I relegate this cable to custom duty (motor controllers, etc).

Or is it cool, and 14 conductor not uncommon?
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E. Lee Dickinson
Advanced Visual Production Inc.
sound - lighting - video - design
www.avpric.com

Ray Cerwinski

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Re: 14 conductor soco?
« Reply #1 on: June 25, 2007, 12:45:55 AM »

14 conductor is very common. It's cheaper than 19 conductor for obvious reasons. The common usage is to take the 6 hots and 6 neutrals and give them their own pins. The remaining two conductors are used for grounds. They make circular discs that get soldered over the 6 ground pins, and then you solder your two grounds to the disc. See page 3 of the PDF in the included link.

http://www.ittcannon.com/media/pdf/catalogs/full/VSC_14aug.p df
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Ray Cerwinski

Fennelli Design Group
www.eventfx.com

E. Lee Dickinson

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Re: 14 conductor soco?
« Reply #2 on: June 26, 2007, 07:48:07 PM »

Thanks Ray, I will have a look at that PDF. I found a few "for sale" 14 pin, so I realized it was not a bizarre thing.

Does anyone know if bonding the grounds is *legal*?
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E. Lee Dickinson
Advanced Visual Production Inc.
sound - lighting - video - design
www.avpric.com

Brian Ship

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Re: 14 conductor soco?
« Reply #3 on: July 04, 2007, 12:13:01 AM »

Legal?   That would depend upon your local city or county building code.  Ask them and expect to explain.

Is it standard or common practice to bond or bridge grounds in having two conductors be tied into six?  Yes and yes, the ground at any point is allowed within a lighting cable to be tied together.  IN fact each lighting instrument does this that's hung on a pipe.  Path of least resistance is the requirement.   Do you expect more than one or two shorts per cable?   How many of those shorts will be within the same phase of current?

Is there a minimum, not persay written but one ground per set of phases is standard minimum as similar to one neutral per set of phases feeding the power supply.  The NEC in the chapter of Grounding explains a lot by way of sub-panels, bonding, bridging etc.  As opposed to needing one neutral per circuit within this cable, on the ground it is normal when not using a eighteen conductor cable (or using this cable for sound), to have one ground per set of phases.  In other words for six circuit, two ground wires is an adiquate minimum as long as both ends of the cable have all six pins bonded to those two conductors in a suitible way.
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E. Lee Dickinson

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Re: 14 conductor soco?
« Reply #4 on: July 04, 2007, 09:21:34 AM »

Thanks Brian, I'll check with the AHD.
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E. Lee Dickinson
Advanced Visual Production Inc.
sound - lighting - video - design
www.avpric.com
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