Jump to content

Zaxcom lectro sanken universal wiring


osa

Recommended Posts

I am out in the field and discovered one of my sanken d's wired for zaxcom lemos works with newer lectro trx's as intended but does not work with my lectro ssm. But my other sankens as well as countrymans and others do. I also recall this being the same issue with my older trx900-123's where some sankens worked and some didnt - will be testing as soon as i get home next week. I wired all of these myself and to the best of my knowledge i followed most recent recommendations here on jw. Is there some universal wiring i missed here on jw for sankens that is known to work across new zax/old zax/new lectro lemo transmitters?

 

-Ken

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The wiring that works with Sanken COS-11 for 3 pin Lemo for Zax tx is: Ground & White to Pin 1, Black/audio to pin 2. No connection to pin 3. I'm not sure if Lectro uses the same pin for audio, they might be using Pin 3 as they do on the TA 5 connector. You might try moving the black wire to pin 3 for Lectro Lemo connector. Also try jumping pins 2 & 3 and create a universal connection.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Eric Toline said:

The wiring that works with Sanken COS-11 for 3 pin Lemo for Zax tx is: Ground & White to Pin 1, Black/audio to pin 2. No connection to pin 3. I'm not sure if Lectro uses the same pin for audio, they might be using Pin 3 as they do on the TA 5 connector. You might try moving the black wire to pin 3 for Lectro Lemo connector. Also try jumping pins 2 & 3 and create a universal connection.

 

Copy that will explore this one further. I swear iirc i did exactly that for all sankens i have but may crack open the sanken that seems to work across the board.  But if  that one in particular is wired exactly as you say, I am stumped and left with maybe it's this particular mic itself

 

-Ken

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Eric and Osa,

The Lectro wiring is completely different.

Pin 1 on the Lectro SSM is ground, Pin 2 is a 1k resistor to ground, Pin 3 is the Servo Bias power and audio input, the same as Pin 3 on the 5 pin xmtrs.

For the COS-11:

Pin 1 is ground

Pin 2 is a source load* for the white wire of COS-11

Pin 3 is Servo Input (bias and audio) for the black wire of the COS-11

 

It is nice how it worked out; three wire mic, three pins.

 

* If the source (white) is tied to ground, the COS-11 has high distortion at high sound levels on the order of 7%. At the identical sound levels, this is reduced to less than 0.6% with a proper source load. Keep in mind, the COS-11 is a three wire mic and the white wire was originally for audio and not intended to be shorted to ground. The source resistor converts the 3 wire mic to a two wire configuration in a low distortion manner. Sanken has never addressed this fully, but our measurements were pretty sound (so to speak).

 

Best Regards,

Larry Fisher

p.s. The SSM manual does not describe these pins properly when speaking about COS-11 wiring. The wiring is correct but Pin 2 is not audio, it is a resistor to ground. Pin 3 is not power, it is audio and bias. They did get Pin 1 correct.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is most excellent education. I have been swapping between ssm and trx with these mics without even considering different wiring. For a year now i have been lucky! No issues for me. I am on a job right now where talent is on the move with an ssm and with interviews later i will switch to trx on the same mic. I thought iirc others here have been doing similar with the lectro lemo introduction. 

 

-Ken

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am calling out the pins as described by Lemo in their description of the connector. Note in our manual for the SSM that we call out how the pins are labled according to Lemo. As I remember, Sennheiser switched pins 2 and 3 in their mic hardware description leading to all kinds of confusion. We are compatible to the Sennheiser wiring though they call out different pin numbers. We figure Lemo should be the authority on pin designations. It may be that Sennheiser has corrected their pin call-out. Lemo did no one any favors by making the guide slots mirror symmetric around the pins.  One more reason I like the TA(*) series connector from Switchcraft; the Damn pins are marked.

Best Regards,

Larry Fisher

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

 

From the solder side the pins on 3 pin Lemo are as on a clock face with pin 1 at 12, pin 2 at 3 and pin 3 at 9. There is a key bump on the pin block directly over pin one. Once you find it, mark it with a sharpie so you can find it again. The black mark also helps in the placement of the metal half covers that go around the pin block. The black mark should show thru the cut out in one of the covers when it's in the correct position.

 

           

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Eric,

That pin out is opposite to what Lectro and Lemo show in their data sheet diagrams.  Oddly, the pin reverse is the same as for Sennheiser.  So Lectro's and Lemo's pins 2 & 3 are switched with Sennheiser's pins 3 & 2 (and the description that Eric gives). Further, Sennheiser wiring with the white wire tied to pin 1 will work with Lectro's SSM  but with higher distortion at high sound pressure levels. Lectro's recommended wiring  for the SSM will not work with Sennheiser's wiring since the COS-11 white wire goes off to a third pin that is a grounded resistor in the SSM but is not present in the other transmitters.

Best Regards,

Larry Fisher

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Larry,

I should have qualified that wiring as being for Zaxcom transmitters as all of the 3 pin lemo lav connectors I've done have been for Zaxcom tx. I've confirmed that wiring with Zaxcom  and testing at my shop confirms my previous diagram as being correct for Zaxcom tx units. If every wireless manufacturer could only standardize on a common input connector (TA5) life would be a lot simpler. Can you imagine what chaos there would be if microphones had different output connectors instead of the standard XLR-M?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Eric Toline said:

From the solder side the pins on 3 pin Lemo are as on a clock face with pin 1 at 12, pin 2 at 3 and pin 3 at 9. There is a key bump on the pin block directly over pin one. One you find it mark it with a sharpie so you can find it again. The black mark also helps in the placement of the metal half covers that go around the pin block. The black mark should show thru the cut out in one of the covers when it's in the correct position.

 

 

However, there's an error in the above, as the numbering -- as viewed from the soldering side -- runs counter-clockwise.  Thus, Sennheiser and Zaxcom Lemos are wired:

 

PIN-1 -- Ground lead and case  (For COS-11, Shield and White)

PIN-2 -- Not connected

PIN-3 -- Signal lead  (For COS-11, Black Wire)

 

Here is the DPA diagram for their Sennheiser adapter (NOTE: According to DPA, the Zaxcom DAD3057 adapter is identical, but has a different model number for internal reasons):

 

DAD6003-diagram.gif?ext=.gif

 

This means that when wired as Eric described above, the results are correct -- it's just the pin numbering that's in error.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, John Blankenship said:

 

However, there's an error in the above, as the numbering -- as viewed from the soldering side -- runs counter-clockwise.  Thus, Sennheiser and Zaxcom Lemos are wired:

 

PIN-1 -- Ground lead and case  (For COS-11, Shield and White)

PIN-2 -- Not connected

PIN-3 -- Signal lead  (For COS-11, Black Wire)

 

Here is the DPA diagram for their Sennheiser adapter (NOTE: According to DPA, the Zaxcom DAD3057 adapter is identical, but has a different model number for internal reasons):

 

DAD6003-diagram.gif?ext=.gif

 

This means that when wired as Eric described above, the results are correct -- it's just the pin numbering that's in error.

Thank you john for bringing up dpa - i just purchased a lemo low voltage microdot adapter for zaxcom, waiting to receive delivery. With what you mentioned above: Larry- is this microdot adapter appropriate for ssm transmitters?

 

-Ken

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, osa said:

Thank you john for bringing up dpa - i just purchased a lemo low voltage microdot adapter for zaxcom, waiting to receive delivery. With what you mentioned above: Larry- is this microdot adapter appropriate for ssm transmitters?

 

-Ken

 

I will, of course defer to Larry's knowledge on this, but it should work fine as Lectro's transmitters are designed to work with either 2-wire or 3-wire lav configurations.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi All,

As far as I can tell, all the different brands' wiring setups are physically and electrically correct, it's just the pin numbers that are reversed. You can't imagine how many hours I spent unwinding my brain trying to reconcile the Sennheiser diagram and the Lemo specs. This is mainly due to Lemo making the pin orientation very difficult to find and the fact that they have 70,000 different connector configurations. There are also 4 different ways of looking at the pins: plug front and back plus connector front and back. (!)   

Here are some conclusions:

1. Eric Toline is a very helpful guy. So's John B.

2. Sennheiser and Zaxcom wired Lemos will work fine going into a Lectro SSM as will other mics wired to a Lemo.

3. The Lectro  recommended COS-11 Lemo wiring will not work with other brands.

4. The recomended Lectro COS-11 Lemo wiring has lower high level distortion but this is probably not a real world problem. Screaming voices are not "distortion" free. If you need compatibility between brands go ahead and tie the white wire to pin 1 (Sennheiser and Zaxcom wiring) making the COS-11 look like a two wire mic. The Lectro wiring is because I'm ridiculously anal about such things.

5. Johnny, the DPA mics you bought don't have or need the resistor option. Only the COS-11 as described above.

6. There is no wiring problem with two wire mics such as the DPA's or any other mainline mics. The COS-11 is the only weird instance because it is a three wire mic. 

7. The DPA microdot connector is fine because it is just a two wire setup.

 

I think that answers the questions posed in all the above posts. One of the things that makes the Lemo and all the different mics usable with the SSM, is that the SSM input parameters are programmable in the mic selection menu such as bias voltage, input impedance, gain, line level and phase. These were taken care of in the past with the various pin wirings, resistors and jumpers in the 5 pin TA5F (with the exception of phase). With the 3 pin Lemo, the only thing that we couldn't handle electronically, was the source resistor for the COS-11. At least now, you can easily solder the COS-11 white wire to a pin rather than try to build in a series resistor.

Best Regards,

Larry Fisher

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you for the kind words Larry. At this point in my long & storied audio career I'm trying to pay it forward as best I can. It's been 64 years since I built my first Hi-Fi set from an Eico amplifier kit, best part it's still fun and I enjoy the challenge of trying to keep up with the digital world while having an analog education.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Eric,

My first kit amplifier was also an Eico,  the ST-70 stereo amp. Later, there were Scott kits (DC powered filaments for low hum, Wow!), Heathkit test equipment, and Harmon Kardon 60 Watt per channel power amps (3 absolutely huge 20 lb transformers). The last one I built for and with a college friend. I didn't find out he was color blind until he handed me a 1k Ohm resistor (brown black red) instead of the correct 1 Meg Ohm resistor (brown black green). It was the last part. My recent kit building life flashed before my eyes and we checked every trimmed and soldered part in that "finished" kit. Somehow he had gotten every other of the hundreds of parts right. Capacitors then were color coded also.

 

In some ways, you and I have been very fortunate to have come from glowing empty state devices and 250 Watt soldering guns (!) to modern electronics with billions of transistors and surface mount construction. We are in a state of wonder. The kids (ha!) just see a solid blob that does magic things, that is replaced in 6 months by a brighter, smaller blob that does even more incomprehensible magic things.

Best Regards,

Larry Fisher

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you larry john and eric for your input this is very educational about this subject all around!

 

john and eric maybe you can answer this - as far as the current zaxcom wiring you described for 11-d's, does this apply to older aluminum shelled trx's as well? Some of my sankens work on all trx's and some dont. I possibly could have wired something incorrectly and going to explore this whwn i get home. If i did wire correctly, my next thought is something weird might be going on with the mics themselves and may just back burner them in lav rotation and mark them accordingly

 

-Ken

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, osa said:

...

john and eric maybe you can answer this - as far as the current zaxcom wiring you described for 11-d's, does this apply to older aluminum shelled trx's as well? 

...

 

Zaxcom has been using this (pins 1&3) wiring for a long time now.  According to their legacy documentation, transmitter serial #1315 was the transition point.  I don't know if this was before the aluminum ones, or just early in their production. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, John Blankenship said:

 

Zaxcom has been using this (pins 1&3) wiring for a long time now.  According to their legacy documentation, transmitter serial #1315 was the transition point.  I don't know if this was before the aluminum ones, or just early in their production. 

it was for aluminium ones. i remember getting my oldest one updated to have the internal resistors fitted so that they wouldnt need to be done in the connector.
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cool i have alum trx-123's in sn 1694 and 1700 so it sounds like I am in the clear and the fault may lie with the mics themselves as I am getting closer to determining. Thank you guys for your input. I am oh so close to getting to the bottom of this. At the very least I am very glad I asked here to get this conversation going about lemo'ed mic compatibility 

 

-Ken

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, LarryF said:

Hi Eric,

My first kit amplifier was also an Eico,  the ST-70 stereo amp. Later, there were Scott kits (DC powered filaments for low hum, Wow!), Heathkit test equipment, and Harmon Kardon 60 Watt per channel power amps (3 absolutely huge 20 lb transformers). The last one I built for and with a college friend. I didn't find out he was color blind until he handed me a 1k Ohm resistor (brown black red) instead of the correct 1 Meg Ohm resistor (brown black green). It was the last part. My recent kit building life flashed before my eyes and we checked every trimmed and soldered part in that "finished" kit. Somehow he had gotten every other of the hundreds of parts right. Capacitors then were color coded also.

 

In some ways, you and I have been very fortunate to have come from glowing empty state devices and 250 Watt soldering guns (!) to modern electronics with billions of transistors and surface mount construction. We are in a state of wonder. The kids (ha!) just see a solid blob that does magic things, that is replaced in 6 months by a brighter, smaller blob that does even more incomprehensible magic things.

Best Regards,

Larry Fisher

 

The ST-70 wasn't an Eico it was a 35wpc Dynakit poweramp that connected up to the PA 2 or 3 preamp. As I recall the ST-70 had 6L6's or EL 34's as output tubes. Such big fat sound going into a set of JBL D130's 15" woofers with JBL  xovers and the 075 ring radiator tweeters. As it's said "those were the days."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...