Heh -- there sure were a lot of the 44 pin edge connectors around back
then. Decent prices too...
That is what I used. I had a small ARP style slider matrix switch that
I played around with for a while but then used 1/4" jacks - wired these
to a separate panel running up along the side. Built a wood case with
the 19" panels and the patch bay to the left (I'm left handed)
I ran into cross-talk problems too but cut this down a lot by using
pairs of wire peeled off ribbon cable that I twisted. Soldered one end
to ground and the crosstalk problems were minimized. Later on, I scored
a bunch of SCSI-1 wire that was twisted pair with a nice flat space
(about an inch long) every six inches. The flat spaces were for IDC
connectors (redundancy alert). Hog heaven because now, I could run
multiple channels of audio for decent distances without crosstalk.
I sold the system too on arriving in Seattle. Don't know what happened
to it and I really regret getting rid of it...
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Brewster [mailto:pugix@...]
> Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2005 7:58 PM
> To: Dave Halliday; motm@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: RE: [motm] Reconfigurable Modular
>
>
> I actually did build my 80's era modular into Vector CCA 19"
> Card Cages. Three cages in fact. Each card was a fiberglass
> perfboard with a 44-pin double sided connector. It was all
> hand wired, no printed circuits. I had developed a method of
> building electronics on non-plated perfboard by simply
> soldering together the leads of components on the back side.
> All ICs were in sockets. All connections to the circuit went
> through the backplane connector. I used a non-regulated dual
> supply with on-card regulation. The panel was a single piece
> of aluminum. All knobs, LEDs and switches were on the left
> side. An unlabelled (but grouped by module) patch bay of
> minijacks adorned the right side. The cages stacked up, so
> all patching was on the right side. The hard part was wiring
> the backplane connectors making a huge cable harness to
> everything on the front. I used military grade Teflon
> insulated #24 wire. There was probably a lot of cross-talk.
> I sold this synth and years later got a call from the buyer
> asking if I had the patch bay documentation! I did not.
> Somehow it had all been lost, including the schematics.
>
> BTW, notice my new email address. I moved to a new house
> three miles from the old one, and had to switch DSL
> providers. Sadly, my MOTM is still boxed up and will be for
> some time.
>
> -Richard Brewster
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dave Halliday <dh@...>
> Sent: Mar 10, 2005 9:57 PM
> To: motm@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: RE: [motm] Reconfigurable Modular
>
> You are looking at something called a Card Cage. Vector
> makes them but
> they are _very_ pricey .
> Without the backplane (this means you provide your own edge connectors
> and mechanical support -- they provide the sheet-metal for mounting
> _their_ plugins, a 19" wide by 3U tall unit is $227
>
> These are frequently available on the surplus market though.
> When I was
> starting out in synthesys (building Electronotes circuits), I was able
> to get a bunch of them from a computer mainframe manufacturer
> that went
> belly up and they worked out well. (The company made
> peripherals for DEC
> equipment. I was living in Boston at the time)
>
> Vector
> http://www.vectorelect.com/Product/Subracks/CCK13-Series.htm
>
> Newark -- Vector cardcage without backplane and plugins
> http://www.newark.com/NewarkWebCommerce/newark/en_US/endecaSea
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