How to wire a 24 circuit DL plug (Jim L method)

[paresjavier]

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[paresjavier]

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[jimlfixit]

Hi paresjavier
I have seen your pictures and well done with your DL wiring.
Can I suggest that you do NOT need to crimp the screen (drain) wire sleeve or heatshrink as there is no need for that and I can see from your pictures that it tends to bend the rear of the DL crimp at an angle which could affect how easy it is to remove at a later date.
With the screen wires, I use rubber sleeving which I can then move back a bit when I crimp the wire so that it springs back onto the rear of the crimp and doesn't actually get crimped and you can't do that with heatshrink as it is more rigid, if you understand that?
I notice that you use tape on the various lots of 8 circuits. I use waxed twine, which SSL use for their looming, and keep it on the wires when loaded ino the DL plug (see the picture).
Also, I put the 20mm x 190mm sheathing on first (see the picture again) after I strip and separate the loom (see the picture). Also note that I put the H20 x 20mm rubber sleeve on the individual cable about 2/3rds on and 1/3rd off.
Hope this helps and it it is ALL down to careful preparation.
The first DL plug I made was for Peter Gabriel in 1987. I priced up his outboard racks and spent 7 hours on the first DL (I never made one in my 7 years at SSL from 1980-87!) so it was a bit of a shock. These days I can do one in under 2 hours with everything I show in the pictures including testing and labellng (a 32 pair takes more time).

I am very nervous of putting pictures on here now after some hacker broke into this forum and deleted ALL the pictures a few years ago which will take me some time to find them and put them back in the right order for all of my posts going back some 8 years or so ... ARGH!

Update: I have just seen your latest pictures 10th of April 21 and they look good. What cable make and type are you using in the pictures out of interest?

[paresjavier]

Hi paresjavier
I have seen your pictures and well done with your DL wiring.
Can I suggest that you do NOT need to crimp the screen (drain) wire sleeve or heatshrink as there is no need for that and I can see from your pictures that it tends to bend the rear of the DL crimp at an angle which could affect how easy it is to remove at a later date.
With the screen wires, I use rubber sleeving which I can then move back a bit when I crimp the wire so that it springs back onto the rear of the crimp and doesn't actually get crimped and you can't do that with heatshrink as it is more rigid, if you understand that?
I notice that you use tape on the various lots of 8 circuits. I use waxed twine, which SSL use for their looming, and keep it on the wires when loaded ino the DL plug (see the picture).
Also, I put the 20mm x 190mm sheathing on first (see the picture again) after I strip and separate the loom (see the picture). Also note that I put the H20 x 20mm rubber sleeve on the individual cable about 2/3rds on and 1/3rd off.
Hope this helps and it it is ALL down to careful preparation.
The first DL plug I made was for Peter Gabriel in 1987. I priced up his outboard racks and spent 7 hours on the first DL (I never made one in my 7 years at SSL from 1980-87!) so it was a bit of a shock. These days I can do one in under 2 hours with everything I show in the pictures including testing and labellng (a 32 pair takes more time).

I am very nervous of putting pictures on here now after some hacker broke into this forum and deleted ALL the pictures a few years ago which will take me some time to find them and put them back in the right order for all of my posts going back some 8 years or so ... ARGH!

Update: I have just seen your latest pictures 10th of April 21 and they look good. What cable make and type are you using in the pictures out of interest?

I have not entered the forum for a long time, I just see this answer. Thank you very much for taking the time to reply.

I assembled this cable for the studio where I work, with parts that I found lying in some boxes.

The cable if I remember correctly (more than 3 years have passed) is GEPCO brand.
DL connector (i used 24 of te 32 ch) > Gepco cable 48 pairs > 1 DB25 + 16 TRS connectors.

Thanks again for all the information on wiring that you provide to the forum.

(It's a shame what you say about the photos, because there was very valuable information and now almost all the links are down)

[jimlfixit]

Thanks for your comments Paresjavier
1   Gepco is quite big cable (unlike Van Damme, used a lot in the UK) and more difficult to fit into a 96 way DL male (plug) connector.
2   I read that you have used a 48 pair cable with 24 balanced circuits on the DL, 16 x TRS jacks and a 25 way D sub. Any photo's to share on here as I have made some cables which are split into different connectors at each end?
3   I still have all the pictures of the stuff I put into my wiring posts over the years. It's just a matter of spending the time to find the right pictures in my iPhoto album and re-posting them into the posts I have already done which will take some time!

Meanwhile I have many more posts to do regarding SSL wiring and hope to do those fairly soon when I have the time.

Regards from Jim Lassen (wiring moderator on here).

[paresjavier]

Thanks for your comments Paresjavier
1   Gepco is quite big cable (unlike Van Damme, used a lot in the UK) and more difficult to fit into a 96 way DL male (plug) connector.
2   I read that you have used a 48 pair cable with 24 balanced circuits on the DL, 16 x TRS jacks and a 25 way D sub. Any photo's to share on here as I have made some cables which are split into different connectors at each end?
3   I still have all the pictures of the stuff I put into my wiring posts over the years. It's just a matter of spending the time to find the right pictures in my iPhoto album and re-posting them into the posts I have already done which will take some time!

Meanwhile I have many more posts to do regarding SSL wiring and hope to do those fairly soon when I have the time.

Regards from Jim Lassen (wiring moderator on here).

Yes, as you mentioned, the GEPCO cable is quite rigid and annoying to work with compared to Mogami or other multipair brands.

Regarding the distribution between the different connectors, it was a bit ugly since in the studio I did not have all the materials and the only thing I did was open the hose 3 sets of cables.
These days when I go to the studio I see if I can take some pictures and upload them.

I would love to see more of your posts about wiring, I hope you can soon put it together

Regards