Backstage stuff - connectors.

Very interesting. I can totally identify with the issue of identifying connectors. I recently had to replace a very small, good quality 6-pin circular connector on a piece of gear - like a LEMO, only plastic. Scoured through Farnell, RS, Digikey, Mouser, even AliExpress & Google image searches - couldn't find it. In the end, had to replace the socket as well..

Gordo

Michael, I take it that you, like me, start involuntarily twitching and foaming at the mouth when you witness someone using that lazy trick of coiling a cable around their hand & elbow. Or when you come across the horribly twisted, will-never-lay-straight-again result of such an exercise. Grinds my gears man, it only takes 5 minutes of practice to learn how to do it properly.

Chris Talbot

On this job I had to strip and re-solder two Litton connectors that rammed eight screened pairs into a small area. In both instances the connectors had been mis-mated and then "screwed in" with the cables, shredding them into a twisted mass of broken connections.

Big Clive

I don't remember how many cables I've terminated using "Cannon Plugs". Now ITT/Cannon, the plug manufacturer, has managed to get over 60 pins in a 3 to 4 cm connector. I have soldered each pin on a 78-pin RADAR connector that was about 10cm diameter. At least I could see them, then. Sort-of happy memories, from Clive. Thanks.

Chuck Kirchner

Oh man I love seeing this stuff. I'm always peeking at various panels and watching crews do their thing. In the 80s when I wasn't singing in bands I was on a sound crew. One learns to wrap cables neatly... quickly and neatly

Michael Thompson

I used to make cables using something similar to Socapex for linking large RF pulse amplifiers to their power supplies. I think we called them bantam connectors for some reason.

Major sound deadening at about 5.21 when you snapped the Ceeform cover closed. Must have been a loud noise for the phone to throttle the audio. Really interesting video. Great to see what sort of setup is being used in a real professional operation.

John Carr

I believe all testing is logged through the stock tracking barcodes.

Big Clive

Great video Clive, I didn’t see any test tags on the leads or fanout box only what looked like PRG barcodes, are the testing and tagging people not as demanding there?

Interesting. In Australia, the vast majority of equipment we use takes a powerCON, powerCON TRUE1 or IEC C13/14. From there we almost always go straight to the standard Australian mains piggyback plug, which we sometimes combine onto a socapex which then breaks back into mains tails at the other end. We then use distros which break out the Australian 3 phase to 12 or so mains sockets with breakers. We have used powerlock with generators, breaking it out to multiple 3 phase outlets. Ceeform seems to be a lot rarer here, the only time I’ve ever used it was when we had some speakers with ceeform inlets, and then we used mains to ceeform leads to plug it into our existing distros.

Cameron Steel

Speaker systems can have a very high peak currents take a 2 ohm 1000 watt cab can see 44.5 amps at full power

God 420

I wonder how many led Xmass strings that distribution box would handle

God 420

I recently discovered that the German company Wanzl, probably most known for their shopping trolleys, is actually using Speakon instead of Powercon on their battery powered mobile workstations. Which are rated at i think 25A continues load. I don't get why you wouldn't use a system that was actually meant to be used as a power connector, but use one for a speaker instead.

Andreas