Socapex Grounding Ring and P14 Motor Cable

14vicmcw

New Member
Hi!

I've been looking for weeks now trying to find somewhere that sells the gold grounding rings for 19pin Socapex cable and just the connectors for P14 motor cable. Does anyone know where I can purchase either of these things?
 
In personal professional policy of giving advice instead of doing sales, and CB policy in being fair to all vendors All above suppliers and more can sell all you ask for.
Your local theatrical supplier can sell P-14 or Soco grounding rings of crimp or solder, so can on-line brands. Some suppliers buy direct in bulk to the manufactures ,that or OEM or resalers direct in bulk purchase. Others manufacture their own plugs and resale them to anyone. Wide range of plug quality and concepts out there for multi-pin, and lead times verses price.

Sort of a triangle, speed/Quality/Price often.

In the end if I have to purchase 100x plugs and wait six months to have the plugs made from a factory... I will be specifying stainless steel plugs at about the same cost individually as you might be buying a single one as aluminum. If I buy aluminum plugs in bulk, my dealer discount in bulk buy would be about similar in price as you will get them from someone else in small resale buys/shopping around for markup from where I work.

Crimp verses Solder pins above mentioned is important to note or specify in a quote. Make sure you know what you are buying in pin type. While the crimp pins frequently have a weep hole on them which makes soldering possible, there is a huge difference in doing either pin. A DMC 4-PIN Indent tool can be very expensive in not knowing the current price between $250-$450.00. One of my co-department Managers recently bought some at a good price. The turret head/spacer for the pin you are using can cost almost as much, but if doing a lot of pins can save time in crimping. Crimping if the proper crimp tool pneumatic or hand is safer than trusting someone's soldering skills.

If instead going solder pins, you will need at least a 60w, but better yet over 80 or more watt soldering iron and training in soldering to properly terminate the wires to the pins. That's a lot of trust, and heat in also one must have the proper strip length, but cannot over heat the wires so as to take the chance the heat shrink wrap over the terminal - sent as far away from where you are soldering... in conductor does not heat up too much to break or move that heat shrink insulation you need to put over the terminal, over it.

Soldered connections are old school, I can do them. If not trained, I do not reccommend attempting. Cold solder on a 20A connection can mean heat enough that heated up solder becomes liquid electricity between phases of wiring.
 
There was a shortage of P14 connectors for a while industry wide from suppliers, I'm not sure if that's been remedied.
 
On SOCO grounding Rings, I have over 24 years experience with dealing with all sorts of brands of them... There are a lot of brands of plugs out there and if using one brand of plug, you must match that ground ring style with the brand of plug. Brand to brand, most likely one will not work with another brand. This much less most all various brands of grounding rings are crap! I say this in experience with most all brands.

The original Socopex connector didn't have a grounding ring.

Origional Veam had a really good grounding ring but was really diffcult to properly install properly.
Jumping a few stages Soco came out with a good grounding ring for the male side after the SLX style came out, but it was for the male side only. A good thing for all brands in quick fix for all brands if you had a groundng issue. And even if you had a grounding issue on that style of grounding ring, just add another and sink them down so as to fix it.
Socapex even came out with a female side of grounding ring, probably discontinued now.

Problem with mechanical grounding rings is that the pins on a 19pin Soco style male or female pin moves about as people connect or especially dial in for keyway so as to mate connections. Problem is when one dials in the keyway to a connection, there is a really good chance pins in a rubber insert are also bending. Most all factory grounding rings depend on tension to them on all pins.

Pins flex with connection... grounding rings have no reason to stay in place and can go floating about inside a connection in shorting between anything. Or if inner ring and outer ring, outer ring can become with flexing more like a six point star than a round ring in now no connection to ground.

Old Soco theory I take from my old school training was to just solder bridge between ground terminals. I was trained in this about 24 years ago. Later I found such a bridge of solder was like liquid electricity in amount of solder to do that should there be a problem.
Too much solder, not enough metal to metal connection.
I cannot advise my solution due to liability, reasons. A combination of a ring of copper soldered to each ground pin. But do I think an in general... where can I get grounding rings is going to need plug specific grounding rings to the plug brand you want to do. One brand of grouding ring willl not work with another.
 
We used to use braided copper ground strap as a ground ring. Was flexible, but required soldering it in place.
 
I would be very interested in this technique, photos... you post your's I'll post you mine in I think the same concept of a proper ground for a Soco ring that works with reality.
Another concept is soon coming back, the 1Kw Soco cable.... or 1.5Kw Soco Cable. Given most lights are at this point LED, 1K cable is soon coming back to usage. Limitation this time not as much on wattage, but DMX channels such Soco cable can feed. Back than, for 16ga Soco, we used to put two 16ga wires per 12ga. solder pin, and work our way around the grounding. I started the practice in general with all Soco of not dogmagically following wire/pin number, but instead path of least resistance also. Instead or wire 11 and 12, they should go to pins 13 and 17 instead = path of least resistance in ground. The 1.5K, same story though a few strands of wires cut to at the time do the standard for the day, grounding jumpers, as opposed to these days just a grounding ring on everything.

For us a sufficient square area of foil Wrap for CamLoc plugs copper foil is used, to equate at best 12ga wire in area. In not doing the math, 1/4" x I think it 3" length in coiled to the about 3/8" dia. of copper from a CamLoc is sufficient in coil for a grounding ring. It soldered to grounding pins with minimal amount of solder needed for a good connection.
We both fight no doubt the liquid electricity problem after that in solder melting and conducting to livewires concern. Why a better mechanical ground needs to be invented but what is on the market I believe not worth investing in purchasing. Yes, better than nothing, but i have seen nothing on the market yet for a perfect mechanical ground for Soco.
 
Last edited:
Personally I'm not a fan of strapping all the grounds together in the connectors -For 6 circuit cables, in my opinion, should ALWAYS be pins 1-18, 1 to 1, and 19 just a blank. In breakouts and ins, the grounds should ALWAYS be segregated by their circuits; pins 1-2-13, 3-4-14, 5-6-15, 7-8-16, 9-10-17, 11-12-18. If the grounds are all common, then it should happen at the power source.

I also work with 8 circuit soco's - They have all circuits share 17-18 as grounds and put circuits 7 & 8 on pins 13-14 and 15-17. The code only requires 2 paths to ground, as I understand.
I also bond grounds together as tails within the backshell so the pins can wiggle as needed.

I believe the 1.5kw cables came about because they are 18/13 cable from Europe (hence the 13 not 12 gauge, and the derating because it is multicable.
 
Personally I'm not a fan of strapping all the grounds together in the connectors -For 6 circuit cables, in my opinion, should ALWAYS be pins 1-18, 1 to 1, and 19 just a blank. In breakouts and ins, the grounds should ALWAYS be segregated by their circuits; pins 1-2-13, 3-4-14, 5-6-15, 7-8-16, 9-10-17, 11-12-18. If the grounds are all common, then it should happen at the power source.

I also work with 8 circuit soco's - They have all circuits share 17-18 as grounds and put circuits 7 & 8 on pins 13-14 and 15-17. The code only requires 2 paths to ground, as I understand.
I also bond grounds together as tails within the backshell so the pins can wiggle as needed.

I believe the 1.5kw cables came about because they are 18/13 cable from Europe (hence the 13 not 12 gauge, and the derating because it is multicable.
The ESTA Electrical Power Working Group just initiated a standards effort for pinouts of Socapex-type 19-pin multiconnectors. This effort will attempt to gather information on the various pinouts that are in use, especially for 208V and 240V applications in North America. The outcome will hopefully be some level of common standardization or a standardized method of reporting and marking the pinout in use.

Ultimate goal: avoid Flash/Boom events, which have become more common as different uses of this connector are created.

ST
 
Last edited:
The ESTA Electrical Power Working Group just initiated a standards effort for pinouts of Socapex-type 19-pin multiconnectors. This effort will attempt to gather information on the various pinouts that are in use, especially for 208V and 240V applications in North America. The outcome will hopefully be some level of common standardization or a standardized method of reporting and marking the pinout in use.

Ultimate goal: avoid Flash/Boom events, which have become more common as different uses of this connector are created.

ST
We have electric chain hoists on 7 pin Soca, with distribution on 19 pin Soca. We rented a hoist package to another local shop, who added their own 19 pin Soca to the package and had a Flash/Boom event. Their Soca had grounding rings installed.

I cannot say loudly enough that ground rings are straight from hell, and the mis-use of multipin connectors in the way Soca is being implemented, is a REALLY BAD IDEA.

I oppose any changes to NEC that would permit even more types of inconsistent service use of this connector.
 
We have electric chain hoists on 7 pin Soca, with distribution on 19 pin Soca. We rented a hoist package to another local shop, who added their own 19 pin Soca to the package and had a Flash/Boom event. Their Soca had grounding rings installed.

I cannot say loudly enough that ground rings are straight from hell, and the mis-use of multipin connectors in the way Soca is being implemented, is a REALLY BAD IDEA.

I oppose any changes to NEC that would permit even more types of inconsistent service use of this connector.
AFAIK, there are no further changes to the NEC planned on this issue, but a Public Input for the 2026 edition could jump out of the bushes. 120V/6ckt pinout seems well known and consistent. But 240V and 208V pinouts are many--and there's no way to determine compatibility without:

A. Everyone agrees on the same pinout and those that don't have it must change, or
B. Connectors are clearly marked with voltage and perhaps a type number describing the pinout which is well understood.

Let's see what progress the ESTA project can make.

BTW, the chair of the Task Group is Hans Lau from Local 728.

ST
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back