more rack ideas

[David Halliday (Volt Computer)]

>  -- Excerpt from David Halliday (Volt Computer)
> > There's a number of "standards" used in industrial control systems -
> > don't know that there was any standard for wiring but the card size
> (
> > and the 22/44 card edge connector ) was pretty stable.  The card
> cages
> > were cheap and a good size to work with.
> 
> And so I challenge; can 22 pins be sufficient for all
> connections for all modules of a voice to the panel?
> Obviously, this depends on the features of the modules,
> but generally speaking, what do you people think?
> 
> 
> 
> Hard one to call...  I would be inclined to not go this way but then,
> I am into total modularity.  I would rather deal with seperate boards
> and a wiring nest than to try to fit everything into some kind of
> rack. 
> 
> Though...  This is in major part because my system evolved and was
> never "officially" started with standards to follow beyond +/-15 and
> 1V/Octave...
> 
> I am also thinking that the racks are very good when you have a lot of
> electronics to cram into a small space.  With syths, the problem is
> panel crowding - I have much more Sq. Ft. dedicated to knobs,
> switches, patchpoints, etc... than I do to PC Boards - I have these
> screwed to the wood sides of my cases and wiring brought to the
> panels.  Works great.
> 
> 
> 
> > Hal Chaimberlain's book on Musical Applications of Microprocessors
> has
> > the idea of putting a header on each card and using ribbon cable to
> > daisy-chain them.  This is nice since you don't have to worry about
> > making a backplane and you can loop from card to card even if the
> > cards are not in a common rack.  He sugested Molex connectors (
> Molex
> > is a prominent manufacturer ) but ribbon cable may be better (
> newer,
> > cheaper, denser )  He drove the audio into current sinking inputs so
> 
> Hey, using mass produced PC technology saves money
> and results in better availability.  This might better
> lend itself to standardization.  Obviously, if I use the
> aforementioned card cage, I'll be more or less on my own.
> But, I already *have* the card cage so, standard or not,
> I'm obligated by frugality to build at least one...
> 
> 
> 
> Yeah - the nice thing there is that this makes these items available
> on the industrial surplus market a couple years after they are state
> of the art.  What may be obsolete to industry is absolutly wonderful
> to us and since we can get it for pennies on the dollar, so much the
> better!  <grin>
> 
> Techno bottom feeding!!!