Newbie issue with Telex

B

BobFenster

Member
I've inherited the job of stage equipment manager at a high school and discovered that we have some Telex headset with BP-2000 belt packs. Our rack system has an Audiocom SPS-2000A and a US-2000A. No one seems to know if these headsets were ever used (we've had considerable turnover). Here's the problem -- I can't seem to get any power to the belt packs. The operation guide is of no help, at least to my limited knowledge of intercom systems.

I can see that the headsets plug into the belt pack, and one can plug into the rack. But what is the power source for the headsets? The 2000A units are connected to the rest of the system and are turned on... is there some other piece of hardware that I'm missing? Any ideas? Thanks in advance for any suggestions/guidance.
 
Ah, is that what you have to do?!? Which port would you use? The three on the back of the BP-2000 are four and six pins, while the only ports on the SPS are 3-pin XLR or what look like 1/16 inch. Is there a cable that I'm supposed to have with different ends?

Thanks!
 
Here's what tech support from Telex said:
"The SPS-2000A is the power supply of the system. This should be looped through the US-2000A and then the two 3pin XLR's would need to be combined into one 6pin XLR output to the rest of the system. You probably have 6pin XLR wall plates located throughout the theatre. I would start at the power supply where it is first combined into a 6pin XLR. You never know when someone has cut a line out to the wall plates. If you would like you can contact me below when you are in front of the equipment and I can walk you through the setup and hopefully get you guys back up and running."

I'll be calling him on Monday, but here's what I'm unclear about -- if I can find a 6pin XLR wall plate, what do I plug into it? I would also need a 6pin XLR cable, which I don't seem to have... (I have located two headsets and three belt packs, nothing else!)

Thanks again for your responses.
 
BobFenster said:
Here's what tech support from Telex said:
"The SPS-2000A is the power supply of the system. This should be looped through the US-2000A and then the two 3pin XLR's would need to be combined into one 6pin XLR output to the rest of the system. You probably have 6pin XLR wall plates located throughout the theatre. I would start at the power supply where it is first combined into a 6pin XLR. You never know when someone has cut a line out to the wall plates. If you would like you can contact me below when you are in front of the equipment and I can walk you through the setup and hopefully get you guys back up and running."

I'll be calling him on Monday, but here's what I'm unclear about -- if I can find a 6pin XLR wall plate, what do I plug into it? I would also need a 6pin XLR cable, which I don't seem to have... (I have located two headsets and three belt packs, nothing else!)

Thanks again for your responses.
Click to expand...

What it sounds like you need to do is buy (or make if you have the skill) 6-pin XLR-3-pin XLR-3-pin XLR. Basically a splitter. This will allow you to connect the belt packs. In my old HS theatre, we has an audiocom powersupply that had an XLR male out that we would just patch to the booth headsets, daisy chaining them off one another and then patching the last one to a splitter and then to SR and SL beltpacks. Our Telex system (I don't remember the model numbers) had BPs that had 1 XLR male, 1 XLR female, and one AF4 plug for the actual headset.

If you or anyone knows anything about soldering, you could probably replace the wall plugs with connectors that would make it easier to connect to the BPs. But don't get into that if you have never soldered anything before. All the cables you need are probably laying around somewhere though.
 
CanYouHearMeNow said:
What it sounds like you need to do is buy (or make if you have the skill) 6-pin XLR-3-pin XLR-3-pin XLR. Basically a splitter. This will allow you to connect the belt packs. In my old HS theatre, we has an audiocom powersupply that had an XLR male out that we would just patch to the booth headsets, daisy chaining them off one another and then patching the last one to a splitter and then to SR and SL beltpacks. Our Telex system (I don't remember the model numbers) had BPs that had 1 XLR male, 1 XLR female, and one AF4 plug for the actual headset.

If you or anyone knows anything about soldering, you could probably replace the wall plugs with connectors that would make it easier to connect to the BPs. But don't get into that if you have never soldered anything before. All the cables you need are probably laying around somewhere though.
Click to expand...


Not 100% sure but, this sounds like a really bad idea, your system likely has input on one set of 3 pin and output on the other set. Combining these would give you feedback in the sytem and most likely destroy your system.
 
CanYouHearMeNow said:
What it sounds like you need to do is buy (or make if you have the skill) 6-pin XLR-3-pin XLR-3-pin XLR. Basically a splitter. This will allow you to connect the belt packs.
Click to expand...

Actually, the BP-2000 has only 4- and 6-pin connections (the 4 pin goes to the headset), so if I were to have a 6-pin to 3-pin convertor or splitter at the wall port, I'd also need one at the headset (with a convention 3-pin XLR connecting the two). I think I just need to get some 6-pin cables... I'm a bit taken aback to see the prices: 25 foot cable is about $115, and 50 foot cable is $175. If anyone knows of a cheaper source, please share that with me. Seems like very few places carry it.

By the way, whoever put this system in only put a Telex WP-3 port in the sound/lighting booth -- and possibly in the stage right wing (I can't tell because the wall I think it's on is currently blocked by tons of wood!). The stage left area has our rack system and you can plug a headset directly into the US2000A. Of course, I probably should get a 4-pin cable as well so whoever is using that can move around more freely. And another PH-1 headset since I've only found two... Yeesh, this is getting expensive!
 
BobFenster said:
Actually, the BP-2000 has only 4- and 6-pin connections (the 4 pin goes to the headset), so if I were to have a 6-pin to 3-pin convertor or splitter at the wall port, I'd also need one at the headset (with a convention 3-pin XLR connecting the two). I think I just need to get some 6-pin cables... I'm a bit taken aback to see the prices: 25 foot cable is about $115, and 50 foot cable is $175. If anyone knows of a cheaper source, please share that with me. Seems like very few places carry it.

By the way, whoever put this system in only put a Telex WP-3 port in the sound/lighting booth -- and possibly in the stage right wing (I can't tell because the wall I think it's on is currently blocked by tons of wood!). The stage left area has our rack system and you can plug a headset directly into the US2000A. Of course, I probably should get a 4-pin cable as well so whoever is using that can move around more freely. And another PH-1 headset since I've only found two... Yeesh, this is getting expensive!
Click to expand...

My bad. I assumed that you had 3-pin XLRs on your BP as that is what my system had. Check what the pinout is for the BPs and the PS. It may be something like DMX where it was made with 5-pins but doesn't utilize them all (which is why they have 5-pin DMX to 3-pin XLR and everything still works.)

Also, are the BPs 1 channel or are they 2? If they are 2 channel packs that would make more sense that you would need the 6-pin XLR. (1-3 for channel 1, 4-6 for channel B)
 
If thats the case you can go the semi complicated way (I dont recommend) that would be to have a 6pin to 2 -3pin XLR splitter at the wall, run 2 regular 3-pin XLR and then have another splitter at each BP to put the 2 XLRs back into 1 6pin. Doing it this way would split channel 1 and 2 into different cables and then put it back together. Before you would do this you would need to check what the pinout would be because it could be 1-3 is channel #1 or 1,3,5 is #1 or any other random combination.

Also doing a bit of googleing showed me this thread which may have some more info into what you would need to do if you don't want to buy the 6pin XLRs

http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/sound-music-intercom/6706-6-pin-xlr-comm-hack.html
 
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