VictorG

New Member
Hello,

I was looking at the lighting situation in a dining hall in MIT's student center and they built in some stage pin and dimmer boxes around the room, likely when they first built the building. I don't recognize the connections for the dimmer and was wondering if anyone here could identify them for me, and/or let me know any way I could use them that would be super helpful information thanks!

 

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Those look to be 10-pin Cinch-Jones connectors, likely part of an analog dimming system. If you want to use a modern desk, you'll need a DMX-Analog converter (or several) as well as the proper adapter(s). I'll bet someone else will be along shortly to give way more information than I ever could.
 
Those look to be 10-pin Cinch-Jones connectors, likely part of an analog dimming system. If you want to use a modern desk, you'll need a DMX-Analog converter (or several) as well as the proper adapter(s). I'll bet someone else will be along shortly to give way more information than I ever could.
@VictorG Exactly as @Les posted and adding the following: Cinch Jones 300 series, based upon the apparent pin size and current rating. [Their 500 series were appreciably larger.] Their part number would involve 310 plus a 2 or 3 letter alpha code ahead of 310 denoting their mounting style, in the sense of panel mount, as in your photo, or cable ends. From memory, a CCT310 would be a 310 series connector with the Cable Clamp on Top whereas a CCE310 would be the same contact block supplied with a back shell with the Cable Clamp in one End. When you assembled the insert into the shell, you could orient it either way depending upon which way you wanted the cable to enter from. The actual contact blocks / inserts were inter-changeable between housings with cable housings designed with cable entries and clamps on the end, 90 degree, or on the top / rear. Of course they were all available in males and females, possibly designated with a simple F or M appended to the end of the part number. From memory, the 300 series ranged from 2 to 36 contacts with a longer, more robust, round contact included on larger sizes to aid in mating and alignment. Don't hold me to it but I think the longer round contact was included in the 24 contact , and larger, sizes. The little 2 contact was the only round connector with the 4 contact being square. The others, from 3 to 36, were rectangular. One nice feature, from the point of view of maintenance, on most of the males in the series, you could remove and replace a damaged contact if desired rather than having to remove and replace an an entire multi-contact connector. The exposed male contacts were more prone to bending and damage than their female mates.
Not carved in stone but a typical analog pin out could be:
Contacts 1 through 6 or 8 equaling 0 to 10 volts DC controlling dimmers 1 through 6 or 8 with common on contact 10.
Polarity could be either positive or negative common depending upon the manufacturer of your dimmers. Many manufacturers employed zero to ten volt DC analog control in the days prior to AMX-192, DMX-512A and other multiplexed protocols such as Colortran.
Cinch Jones multi-pin connectors, and an intermateable compatible brand should still be available today from suppliers such as Mouser.
Cinch Jones used metal back shells with paper or plastic insulator linings. An alternate brand used plastic back shells and was popular in the vending machine industry.
EDIT 1: Corrected a typo. I had spelled "with" as "withe". With apologies for my blunders.
EDIT 2: Corrected largest size from 37 contacts to 36.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.
 
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Thank you guys for your information. A follow up, I realized today, that the leprecon 624 board I use has a Cinch-Jones 27 male connector port on the back for analog control. 1) Does that mean cinch-jones inverts the direction of data to pins to fixture and 2) online I'm only seeing connector but no adapters to DMX or even cables. If I wanted to run the whole thing on analog instead of DMX how could I go about doing that?
 
Except for EDI, although they tended to use the 8 and 15 pin versions for 6 or 12 channels. On those, the last pin was common, BUT there was also a +25 volt pin. (#7 on the 8 pin, #13 on the 15 pin.) EDI also used an odd voltage range of 2 to 7.6 volts.
 
What I'm seeing from the 2 photo's is 1) A 24 channel/dimmer male connector panel that allows a remote 24 channel analog console to send 0-10VDC (Likely) control signal to these panel mount male connectors. You could then presumably control 24 analog dimmers connected to this panel. 2) The photo of the female Cinch Jones seems to be the analog input point to dimmers elsewhere in the system.

There's no inversion or fixtures. It's simply the control output on those male connectors and can be used by a compatible dimmer system.

In order to use the analog console with modern gear you need A) A set of cables, female 10 pin CJ to whatever connectors used on an analog to digital convertor. B) The analog to digital convertor that will convert the (likely) 0-10VDC signal to DMX or whatever. Then take the DMX out of the convertor to wherever.
 
A few dimmer manufactures used a 10-pin Cinch-Jones control connector such as Strand, LMI, Colortran, and I believe TTI. The sex of the connector did not always indicate whether it was an input or output. The Leprecon 624 has a male 27 pin because they sold female to female extension cables. They also had a breakout to 4 female 8 pin Cinch-Jones to mate with their tree dimmers. I don't think they are selling analog equipment anymore.

Even if you already have analog dimmers, using the in-house control wiring would take quite an effort to get working.
 
Thank you guys for your information. A follow up, I realized today, that the leprecon 624 board I use has a Cinch-Jones 27 male connector port on the back for analog control. 1) Does that mean cinch-jones inverts the direction of data to pins to fixture and 2) online I'm only seeing connector but no adapters to DMX or even cables. If I wanted to run the whole thing on analog instead of DMX how could I go about doing that?
@VictorG Part of what folks are telling you about the sex of the male connector on your console is basically this: Many such consoles did not have a separate power cord but were powered from control voltage supplies included within their dimmer racks and / or packs. Thus the cable mounted female connector both provided the power to energize the console and carried the return voltages back to the various dimmers on a wire per dimmer basis.
Bottom line translation: The exposed, and seemingly hazardous, male contacts on the console were dead and without power the moment they were unmated and exposed. Granted, if the connectors were not tightly mated, you could draw sparks by allowing your metal measuring tape to enter the gap and connect between exposed contacts ALTHOUGH this would be true regardless of which sex of connector was on the console. Having the energized female on the detachable cable was the safer way to go.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.
 
To use your 624
Thank you guys for your information. A follow up, I realized today, that the leprecon 624 board I use has a Cinch-Jones 27 male connector port on the back for analog control. 1) Does that mean cinch-jones inverts the direction of data to pins to fixture and 2) online I'm only seeing connector but no adapters to DMX or even cables. If I wanted to run the whole thing on analog instead of DMX how could I go about doing that?

To go from your 27-pin male CJ output on your 624, you need to connect as follows if the panel CJ 10-pin male connectors follow the fairly standard 0-10v pinout:
CJ 27 pins 1-6 to CJ 10-pin female #1 pins 1-6
CJ 27 pins 7-12 to CJ 10-pin female #2 pins 1-6
CJ 27 pins 13-18 to CJ 10-pin female #3 pins 1-6
CJ 27 pins 19-24 to CJ 10-pin female #4 pins 1-6
CJ pin 25 is not connected
CJ 27 pins 26 & 27 are the common and go to all CJ 10-pin females pin 8 (common). Pin 8 was usually used as common, not 10.
CJ 10-pin pin 7 is not used and pins 9 and 10 were sometimes used for power, so often not connected.
 
I was looking at the lighting situation in a dining hall in MIT's student center and they built in some stage pin and dimmer boxes around the room, likely when they first built the building.
We need to see the other end to be sure, but I suspect it likely that the dimmers have since been replaced by something DMX and the extant Cinch-Jones don't do anything at all.
 

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