Analog rack backplane idea? (fwd)

[Michael A. Firman]

Original post:

> >However such a system would involve quite a dedicated design phase, from
> >backplane pinouts to sheet metal to edge connectors on the circuit
> >board. I mean, I could do it, but I don't see the effort being justified
> >by the demand. It would just be nice to see somebody do it....

Steve Curtin said here:

> 
> Maybe this is obvious- One thing to keep in mind about card cages is that
> the cards have a way of working themselves loose.  Make sure to add some
> kind of bracket mounting like the PC or better yet use the front edge of
> the board for the front panel.  I used to own a Buchla quad mixer (Grant
> Richter owns it now) and the VCA cards were always working themselves loose
> since there was nothing holding them in the card connector other than the
> edge fingers.
> 
> This would be an especially nice idea for a bus-based patching system like
> the ARP 2500.  The E-Mu Voice Demo Board in my system has all of its inputs
> and outputs on an S-100 edge connector, I think something similar to this
> board was used to construct the E-Mu Audity.  The PAiA CEM experimentor
> cards also bring their i/o to contacts on the side of the board that can be
> plugged into a socket.  I think Grant Richter's system also uses card edge
> connectors.  

I don't want to speak for Grant here (he's a friend of mine), but his modules
don't interact via a bus. Internally each module uses ribbon cable to connect 
a standard face plate layout (knobs, lights, and jacks) to the PC card in that 
module. It's sort of a standard case with different PC boards in each device.
Note that the Roland S100m modules do connect to each other via a star
configuration using DIN cables. The cables have power, power for LEDs, CV, and
Trigger info on them. This allows a key board or other device to plug into a
single point on the rack (the racks daisy-chain together).

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|Michael A. Firman <maf at mcs.net>
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