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adhmzaiusz
Joined: Jan 17, 2008 Posts: 59 Location: toronto
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Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2009 7:08 pm Post subject:
Banana cable question Subject description: how to ground |
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So I bought a bunch of banana connectors with the intention of making one of my sound labs patched out, and I was reading the patch-out guideline on Ray's site and it says the general rule is to make sure all the connectors are grounded. No problem if it was any other connector, but all my banana connectors have only one prong to solder to... I see that others have done this no prob, so what am I missing here?
thanks!
G |
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RF
Joined: Mar 23, 2007 Posts: 1502 Location: Northern Minnesota, USA
Audio files: 28
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Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2009 7:32 pm Post subject:
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Either use a conductive panel, or run a continuous ground wire to each point which would like to be grounded....
The banana's will work fine.
bruce _________________ www.sdiy.org/rfeng
"I want to make these sounds that go wooo-wooo-ah-woo-woo.”
(Herb Deutsch to Bob Moog ~1963) |
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adhmzaiusz
Joined: Jan 17, 2008 Posts: 59 Location: toronto
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Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2009 9:55 pm Post subject:
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What I was saying is that there is only one solder point... so is what you are saying is ground that as well as soldering the normal wires to the pcb? |
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Inventor
Stream Operator
Joined: Oct 13, 2007 Posts: 6221 Location: near Austin, Tx, USA
Audio files: 267
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Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2009 1:08 am Post subject:
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adhmzaiusz wrote: | What I was saying is that there is only one solder point... so is what you are saying is ground that as well as soldering the normal wires to the pcb? |
adhmzaiusz, that is not correct. Ground needs to be it's own separate electrical connection. Solder all of your ground connections together with jumper wires to a single extra "ground" banana jack. Then solder all of your signals to their own banana jacks.
Just to clarify, electric voltages are really a form of electric potential, and potentials require a difference between two wires, not just one wire. In electronics we say: "OK, let's keep this simple. We'll create one single hunk of metal (wires) and call it "ground". Then all of our other voltages will be *relative* to that ground voltage."
A good analogy is gravity. You and I are out in a field and we have some one kilogram weights on the ground (note use of the same term). I lift my weight one meter into the air. You lift yours two meters into the air. What has happened is that your weight now has twice the gravitational potential energy as mine. We can make this comparison because we are both standing on "ground". If I were on ground and you were in a 3rd floor apartment and we did the same thing, there would be no basis of comparison because we have different "ground" references. Mine is earth ground and yours is three stories up.
Voltages are the same way. If we didn't establish a common frame of reference, called "ground", then all heck would break loose and chips would fry! To finish the analogy, say I have a synth and you have another synth. We would like to hook these up together to make music. The very first thing we do is connect our ground wires together. That way all of my voltages and all of your voltages have a common reference and the synths will play nice together.
I hope that clarifies it a bit, and pardon me if you already understood this, I surmised from your comments that you were a little unfamiliar or confused by ground. It doesn't hurt to overexplain I guess.
Good luck and have fun!
Les _________________ "Let's make noise for peace." - Kijjaz |
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fluxmonkey
Joined: Jun 24, 2005 Posts: 708 Location: cleve
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Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2009 7:38 am Post subject:
Re: Banana cable question Subject description: how to ground |
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to patch out the soundlab, there is no need to have separate grounds on your connections... since you're patching between points on a single circuit w/ a single power supply, all of the sub-modules of the soundlab already share a common ground. so just wire from the patch points on ray's diagram to the single connection on the banana jacks, you'll be fine.
be sure that you have insulated banana jacks... there are some that are not, in which case you would need to use non-conductive (wood or plastic) panel.
if you wind up wanting to patch your soundlab to other modules, then you'll need to make sure you connect the ground of the SL to the ground of the other components...
b
adhmzaiusz wrote: | So I bought a bunch of banana connectors with the intention of making one of my sound labs patched out, and I was reading the patch-out guideline on Ray's site and it says the general rule is to make sure all the connectors are grounded. No problem if it was any other connector, but all my banana connectors have only one prong to solder to... I see that others have done this no prob, so what am I missing here?
thanks!
G |
_________________ www.fluxmonkey.com |
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adhmzaiusz
Joined: Jan 17, 2008 Posts: 59 Location: toronto
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Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2009 10:55 am Post subject:
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Inventor wrote: |
I hope that clarifies it a bit, and pardon me if you already understood this, I surmised from your comments that you were a little unfamiliar or confused by ground. It doesn't hurt to overexplain I guess.
Good luck and have fun!
Les |
Well thanks for your in depth explanation... but what is confusing me is the jacks I have only have one point to solder to.... so if it is supposed to be grounded, and that solder point is already taken by say point "hh" in Ray's wiring diagram, there is nowhere to solder a ground to this jack. I hope this makes sense.
I know that 1/4 inch jacks have a tip and sleeve, so do 1/8" jacks, and hell even power is TRS. I'm just confused because bananas are only sleeve and the jack is only sleeve, and only one point to solder that to. So if you guys all say solder a ground... where the heck does it go
So bobb says that it doesn't need to be grounded? is this correct..? lol sory im so confused here Last edited by adhmzaiusz on Wed Jul 08, 2009 11:00 am; edited 1 time in total |
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adhmzaiusz
Joined: Jan 17, 2008 Posts: 59 Location: toronto
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Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2009 10:59 am Post subject:
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I think what bobb is saying makes sense... because its just like connecting a wire between 2 places and i dont need to ground every wire seperate from every point. Im just bridging something thats already grounded in the board right? |
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Inventor
Stream Operator
Joined: Oct 13, 2007 Posts: 6221 Location: near Austin, Tx, USA
Audio files: 267
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Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2009 11:11 am Post subject:
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I think the confusion is partly because someone told you that a jack needs to be grounded. A banana jack does not. It is a single node. The reason it was mentioned that you don't need to run ground to a separate banana jack is because the system you are working on is fully self contained and doesn't need to connect to any other systems.
A guitar cable, for example, is a connection between two circuits: the guitar circuit and the amplifier circuit. You simply cannot do that with one wire. Remember, voltage is potential *difference*. You need two wires to transmit a difference.
Oh, and if guitar cables were like banana jacks, you'd simply run two banana cables, one for signal and one for ground. But it's much better to have it all built into one wire (and shielded). _________________ "Let's make noise for peace." - Kijjaz |
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adhmzaiusz
Joined: Jan 17, 2008 Posts: 59 Location: toronto
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Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2009 11:55 am Post subject:
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Aha! thanks Inventor for the clarifications sir. I can't wait to try this out now! |
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Zodiak
Joined: May 20, 2007 Posts: 249 Location: Gillingham, Kent UK
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Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2009 12:55 pm Post subject:
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Nobody has mentioned it here but you don't need the shield for a modular
Most Audio signals are in the order of 0.1 volts, so without a shield you would pick up hum from the mains.
With synths the signal is 100 (roughly) times bigger but the hum level doesn't change so by comparison it is almost inaudible and can be safely ignored for everything apart from studio recording, but even then a noise gate will deal with 99% of problems
The only issue I worry about is cross connecting two synths, because their earth lines will not be connected so I only use standard jacks for this. (I have jack > 4mm breakout panels on each synth) _________________ Stephen
www.Rainsbury.Net |
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adhmzaiusz
Joined: Jan 17, 2008 Posts: 59 Location: toronto
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Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2009 3:56 pm Post subject:
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Zodiak wrote: | Nobody has mentioned it here but you don't need the shield for a modular
Most Audio signals are in the order of 0.1 volts, so without a shield you would pick up hum from the mains.
With synths the signal is 100 (roughly) times bigger but the hum level doesn't change so by comparison it is almost inaudible and can be safely ignored for everything apart from studio recording, but even then a noise gate will deal with 99% of problems
The only issue I worry about is cross connecting two synths, because their earth lines will not be connected so I only use standard jacks for this. (I have jack > 4mm breakout panels on each synth) |
Arent most modulars running off of the same power source anyways though? I guess except when you have a monster modular |
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Zodiak
Joined: May 20, 2007 Posts: 249 Location: Gillingham, Kent UK
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Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2009 5:37 pm Post subject:
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adhmzaiusz wrote: | Arent most modulars running off of the same power source anyways though? I guess except when you have a monster modular |
If they are all in one rack then yes, but mine is being rebuilt in 4 flight cases to make it portable and each of those will have its own supply.
Each supply can run two racks so if one dies I can draw power from another. _________________ Stephen
www.Rainsbury.Net Last edited by Zodiak on Mon Jul 13, 2009 4:16 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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