DanieldH

I've opened my unit the other day to reinstall the SD and also removed the part of the housing around the battery bay with the NP-F sled. I've found 2 sets of PCB headers that might be an RS232 serial connection or JTAG and an interface to flash some ROM. There is also a tiny set of dip switches with a position legend and the word "Flash"on the PCB, therefor my assumption of the flash connection. Scrollinng around the binaries and various other config files gives a good impression and lots of hints of how this machine works, however playing around with some Montavista toolchain or suite from anno 2007(?) is beyond my evening hobby and my linux skills for embedded firmwares are limited. This is an excellent hardware (I can not confirm the 1490Hz wining on my mid SN2XX so far with 8060 and superCMIT, just did a quick test though) with potentials never implemented and still useful as it is so far. My wish would be, that this abandoned incredible versatile hardware reaches somehow adulthood on a FOSS firmware, though these hopes are rather limited. Few units out there, even fewer coders or even among owners.

Well, the title says it all. I'll need some XLR cable length that should also serve on SuperCMITs. Maybe 30m max, so it's probably not very relevant, but I thought, I'd ask.

1. The Hixman CA701 might work for you, though it is not a cable. You can buy it directly from hixman.com or from aliexpress. https://www.hixman.com/hixman-ca701-convert-adapter-for-lectrosonics-ta5f-to-sennheiser-audio2000s-3-5mm-plug-wireless-bodypack-transmitter 2. Then there is micronic from the UK. They also sell on ebay. I am not sure if I dislike them for some of their other products though, but that's only me. https://micronic.co.uk/collections/microphone-adapter/products/lectrosonics-ta5m-ta5f-5-pin-mini-xlr-microphone-adapter-for-body-pack-transmitters

Thnx Lucky for pointing this out. I have briefly looked at the internal card and made a gziped data dump of the card. The compressed file is 38,8 Mb small. I might also make some mountable images. It was taken from a unit with timecode, and 8 tracks enabled, without the ambisonics option. I won't post it here for now, since there might be intellectual property issues that Jeff may not be comfortable with. I'd consider the thing abandonware anyhow. If anyone is interested in the file send me a PM and I might send you a private copy for research purposes. Here is some info: (Sorry for the German locale) sudo fdisk -lu /dev/mmcblk0 Festplatte /dev/mmcblk0: 7,53 GiB, 8068792320 Bytes, 15759360 Sektoren Einheiten: Sektoren von 1 * 512 = 512 Bytes Sektorgröße (logisch/physikalisch): 512 Bytes / 512 Bytes E/A-Größe (minimal/optimal): 512 Bytes / 512 Bytes Festplattenbezeichnungstyp: dos Festplattenbezeichner: 0x00000000 Gerät Boot Anfang Ende Sektoren Größe Kn Typ /dev/mmcblk0p1 1 510947 510947 249,5M 83 Linux /dev/mmcblk0p2 510948 717119 206172 100,7M 83 Linux /dev/mmcblk0p3 717120 923291 206172 100,7M 83 Linux /dev/mmcblk0p4 923292 15758711 14835420 7,1G 83 Linux Partition 1 is a squashfs, 2 and 3 are ext2, 4 seems to be without any fs and empty. df -h | grep mmcblk /dev/mmcblk0p3 98M 16M 77M 17% /media/xxxxx/e6926ee8-[...] /dev/mmcblk0p2 98M 860K 92M 1% /media/xxxxx/50d27041-[...] /dev/mmcblk0p1 9,9M 9,9M 0 100% /media/xxxxx/disk The card looks like this one:

Sounds like quite a bit of engeneering and programming effort. Wisycom's protocol is bidirectional, in the way that you see a success report on the RX, e.g. when syncing frequencies. I'd guess this is also true for various Lectro families. If you only need it unidirectional it might simplify things. There is quite some stuff out there for relaying unidirectional IR signals for home electronics via IP or BT. Most of it is too big to put it on actors, though something like the raspberry zero w might do the trick but is still bigger than an audio BT box these days.

Afaik most IR remote applications are "digital"/binary on/off blinking, i.e. pulsed signals, not different "colors". Dweddle tones are... well sequences of different tones. What are you trying to do? Sidenote: lirc may be worth a look for capturing/reproducing IR stuff. There are also some Ardurino projects.

It does. There's a slight mechanical flaw though, I believe with battery contacts/spring tension, if it is mounted with the XLR pointing to the foot of the pole. When you set the boom on the ground not gently enough, or hit some obstacle when moving backwards the unit just turns off and needs to boot again. I've experienced this with quite a few (but not all) MTB units on my Ambient boom with the QALP. Not a big issue, since you learn quickly how to set it down.

Depends on your other setups, and what pros/cons apply to you more. I particularly dIdn't like the initial MicroUSB connector. With its 5V, it even had limitations on maximum charging currents, though I rarely charge fast. Nowadays N8 apparently has USB-C (and even needs 12V on there to reach full performance?). That said, I'd even prefer coax power connectors to USB-C as they're simpler and easier to customize, sit tighter and are probably more durable.

The ISDT N8 is USB powered @5V. The N16 and N24 need 12V and come with a PSU and a non locking 5.5mm DC power connector that sits firmly. I did not like the USB charging concept. The N16 and N24 also have a USB port, that is currently only meaningful for firmware updates that don't exist so far afaik. There are lots of things that could be improved by firmware, but I have a feeling this will never happen. Some say, it is difficult to take out AAs but though they are firmly in the bay, you'll find a technique quickly to take them out. Ppl reported that the units deep discharge (or overtickle?) batteries when they are stored in there over long periods of time. So keep that in mind. I have 2 N24 and 48 white Ladda2450 and am quite happy.

Audio latency is roughly 1s aka 1000ms. My toddler enjoyed playing with the echo. Yes, your range guess meets my experiences. After all, this is bluetooth and for confidence monitoring in small sets (e.g. interviews) it is enough and can save a TX + soundbag. In a way, this is not only a good thing. I have not tested (yet) the battery runtime with a permanent audio stream. Also, the audio stoped when the screen of the Ipad went black after some minutes. That might be an OS setting though or could be fixed. Edit: I just tested the App on my Android 9 phone. When I tried to switch on audio streaming, the app told me that audio streaming is supported from android 10 on. VID_20211208_182334.mp4

I just played around with it on a borrowed Ipad. Not much has changed. The devices page in the app now has a loudspeaker icon. Activating it indeed opens an audiostream with what felt like a bit more than a second of delay. The range is as one would expect like a bluetooth headset or loudspeaker. There is still a lot room for improovement but BT confidence monitoring is a big step forward.

Tentacle just released a beta version of the new firmware and apps.

Go to Kortwich. Over a weekend, rent a good and pricey shotgun and some other mic to compare, like a supercardioid or if they have, a cheaper shotgun like the NTG4. Plus a windscreen, a boom, a cable and the smallest/oldest recorder they have, or even just an SQN3 mixer or so. Play around with it, indoor, outdoor, in a staircase, in traffic. Bring a friend and try to point the mic to his or her voice. Then you know what a shotgun does and does not. For entry level shotguns, youtube reviews are a good resource, with sound samples included. Look for used film equipment rather than new musicians equipment.

Do you actually buy it in terms some of Swiss, EU, whatever license or do you just pay for service?

Hey James, thank you for the update. Sorry to be a wise-ass. Here are some minor comments for the sake of precision. Technically, the Track E (if "green"?) does transmit its timecode every time the app "sees" it... to the app. Within the app, you can manually relay its TC as master TC to other Tentacles. (even the original one via USB?) Playback triggered via the switch or the app should be possible from a file the device "believes" to be the last recorded one. The english blogpost announced a new firmware that brings this feature to IOS and Android. An update to the app on both platforms is assumable and highly likely to make use of these features.