building your own clearcom/telex head set

koncept

Active Member
I am working at about 3 theatres right now all use a different intercom system and all have headsets that are falling apart. i wnat to build my own using a $20ish computer headset & mic using an adapter. a 4 pin xlr to two 1/8" jacks. I want to know if this would work or not. if so does any one have some advice??
 
i found a few sites with the pinouts for both the telex and clearcom systems. the pinouts are the same which is nice. correct about the pos and neg for ears n mic. i do not know about using a cell headset all though taht would be idea as I already have one i like
 
only reason i can see for separate grounds if if the mic n speaker are on different voltages. thanks for the info jumpjet. i will pull up the diagrams later and post the pins.
 
Hrm. Possibly. It claims that with the base station/headset combo, you can use it with "Any" phone, bluetooth compatible or not. It probably plugs into a phone where the handset would... Which means it would probably work with the right wiring. Expensive headset though, just for telling the spotlight operators to quiet down....
 
Yeah, here is a pic from the manual. The base station takes the place of the handset, or rather, piggybacks in between, so I'm almost certain you could make this work...

proxy.php
 
You can't use a cell headset, as you MUST have separate grounds for the earpiece and mic...otherwise the sidetone null won't work properly, and you'll have feedback issues, among other things.

Also, to use some computer headsets (and cellphone headsets, were the separate reference grounds not an issue) you need bias power for the electret mic, which is an optional setting that needs to be changed on the circuit board of the ClearCom pack, or provided in the connector/an adaptor box via a circuit you build.

--A, resident ClearCom guru
 
So with that in mind. Is anyone willing to write a tutorial to do this?
 
Could someone give me a brand name / model for a headset that would work? Is it any computer / phone headset? The whole grounding thing scared me. I have shows on Thursday, Friday, and Saterday and I would love to get one or two built before those.

I don't want to blow up the clearcom system so some guidence would be great.
 
Ok. So I found a headset around the house that is a Panasonic KX-TCA86. It had a 2.5mm plug on it.

Product Page is: http://www2.panasonic.com/webapp/wc...rogram=11002&cachePartner=7000000000000005702

I found this page: http://www.epanorama.net/links/intercom.html#fullduplexintercom

That says:
The beltpacks on Clear-Com system use typically a headset that is connected with a 4-pin XLR connector. The dynamic headset connector pin-out is:

Pin 1: mic common
Pin 2: mic hot
Pin 3: headphone common
Pin 4: headphone hot

Now that I have cut off the plug I have 4 wires:
1 Red, 1 Green, 1 Gold, and 1 White

The red and green ones have a nylon looking material wound into the wires. I would assume that that means they are paired together.

My question is: Are the red and green the mic or the speaker? and which color is ground, because ground isn't black.

Thanks for your help
 
I couldn't find this anywhere on the web, but I was wondering if anyone knew the pin order inside the 4-pin XLR cable. I know that they have number from 1-4 and probably go in some sort of logical order, but I couldn't find it.
 
Its not that which I don't understand. its that inside the physical wire there is an order of pins like

.------.
.---.


How are they numberd? is it 1,2,3,4 from left to right if you are looking at the wire like that, or is it like that if the wire is flipped over from as its shown here? or how exactly is it define.

(The dashes were Added only to keep the spacing correct, only look at the dots please.)
 

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