What's wrong with this picture? (Heh)

The_Guest said:
Were you referring to this...
"...for a Battle of the Bands. One of the featured bands had a home-made flash-pot system that used your standard orange extension cords.....

Nope, I was referring to a local balls up but it was along similar lines.

ship said:
Not doing sound for a living I can't say beyond that I would think that a good signal would require a cable feeding it to have other than just a store bought SJT power cord's resistance factors about it as conductor type.

With regards to using power cable for speaker cable the important thing to remember is that you need to use a decent gauge of wire to ensure that the resistance over the cable length doesn't mean that you are converting the energy from your amp into heat. This was a topic discussed some time ago and I cannot recall the exact math involved. Not difficult to work out but it escapes me at the moment. 22AWG is certainly best avoided and I think that 12AWG and larger were best suited. Multi-strand as opposed to solid core is hopefully an obvious point as well.
 
How can those legally be for sale? When I first saw the pic I thought, oh some n00bs in a band trying to save money... I was certain they new it wasn't safe at all but were using it for personal use only, their loss...

When I finally saw the link I realised these are some first class asses, if they think their product is good enough to sell to the public! That deserves a Krusty endorsement!
 
Radman said:
That deserves a Krusty endorsement!

krusty.gif


"It's not just good. It's good enough"
 
it think these are also approved for a zapped ya! labs certification(the archnemesis of Underwriters Laboratory)
 
avkid said:
it think these are also approved for a zapped ya! labs certification(the archnemesis of Underwriters Laboratory)

That's right, you said it best. I guess? :?:
 
Radman said:
...first saw the pic I thought, oh some n00bs in a band trying to save money...

Not badmouthin bands, to clarify, I'm a musician myself! Just saying how bands sometimes cut corners...
 
dang, those are for sale?!?!? Holy crap!!! That has to atleast get someone, namely the inventor, a darwin award!! The only way I would ever THINK of doing something like that would be in my bedroom. I would never even use something like that at my youth group. I have used edison cable for speakers, but that's with the edison ends gone and 1/4 on their place. No way anyone could plug that into an outlet, and I've never had problems with any ampacity problems. I don't see how people can legally sell those adaptors, that is stupid. It's more than stupid! in Newspeak, it'd be doubleplusstupid!!!!!
 
I will tell you that I first saw this type of cable connection about three years ago at a major facility with a professional touring company. Now you get to figure out what the term professional means.
My thoughts were just about what everyone else has thought, how stupid! I was there doing a lighting hang and we were running edison plugs to our fixtures. These cables from audio passed right by dimmer beach and I was amazed at the potential for disaster. They were running a new NEXO line array with edison extensions between their amps and boxes and couldn't afford cables.

I am also curious why they ran a balanced cable to unblance 1/4" plugs. Is that the answer to the question? Is it the same answer for the NL2 plugs? Balanced plus on one end, unbalanced connectors on the other.
 
Sometimes you do need to break the rules on specific things otherwise not acceptable in a professional and supervized setting as a solution that is otherwise not covered for in the necessity of doing. Such things are .

Two questions might be answered in doing so.

First is it a economical solution in solving the problem or a absolute necessity to make it work? Second, in being resale as it seems these items are, it is being sold only to those that will ensure the proper use of the equipment in a professional setting or to anyone in general?

Such questions differentiate what is unsafe but nessary at times and what is unsafe but necessary to either use or produce in the most safe way possible given otherwise it will be done - just in many cases not as safely done.

The above gear is not a necessity, instead it's a cost cutting solution making it unsafe without a cause to be so. Second, in being unsafe due care of supervision of who is able to use it was also not done.
 
Speakers are not balanced. You have a signal and a ground. 3 pin XLR were common place as speaker lead connectors mainly due to the fact that they were more robust than a 1/4" jack.

The cable that you use for a speaker is not sheilded either, which is why power cable is fine for speakers - just NOT with the power plugs on the end.
 
The lighting and audio compamnies were different. It is very common in this town to run lights with edison plugs. Typical rigs might have fixtures plugged into 6-bar pre-rig with edison then with multi cables to the dimmers. Dual outputs on the dimmer to allow for two-fering at the rack with no two-fering in the air. I have seen quite a number of professional lighting and AV companies use 15 amp edison plugs on their systems. All of their systems seem to be designed with dimmer per circuit and circuit per fixture. They seem to part from the conventional theatrical users which has max rated plugs and cables for each dimmer, such as 20 amp plug on 12 gauge cable to a 2.4k dimmer. The AV companies also use 14 gauge wire for their multis and extensions. That does not, in my opinion make them less professional, just seems that they design their systems to run amd meet their needs and that of the NEC. Only one rental house in town commonly stocks fixtures with stage pins and that is because they primarily rent to established theaters. When they cross rent or send gear on an AV job, they send out adaptors for edison to stage pin.

I also must mention that I have seen touring rigs n the past use plugs to power their speaker systems that are also availbale for elctrical uses. They just are not as common as an edison extension cord. Typically this was a twist-lock type plug to their speakers from their racks. I might be showing my age on this as I have not seen this in quite some time. Except in this case with the edison plugs. Never imagined that it could show up anywhere else.

As for the audio company in my response, I pointed out the AC cable connections from their speakers to my co-worker and laughed. I could not believe the risk they were taking of blowing a $8000.00 speaker on a twenty dollar cord.

As for my answer to the question, I know that speaker runs are not shielded or grounded , that is why I (laughingly) mentioned that the plugs were not 3 pin to match the 3 conductor wire thay used. They used three conductor cables for a two conductor plug. While not technically wrong it could be considered wrong.

Why would a neutric NL 2 plug be rated to 250 volts AC? Just curious, I don't know.
 
Robert said:
Why would a neutric NL 2 plug be rated to 250 volts AC? Just curious, I don't know.

If memory serves me correctly, they were also used for power in some applications. Stratos lights first came out with these connectors for power. I have also hear that a few speakers did meet a rather nasty death as a result of people accidently confusing them for speaker leads.

They now make a power coupler that looks the same (might be a different colour) but is keyed differently. I think it is called a power lock connector but again, I would have to check.
 
avkid said:
I didn't see them for sale anywhere!

You're probably better off. There's a link under the pictures in the original post. It sure looks as if they're for sale, although there's no pricing mentioned that I could find. Unless this guy got all the parts dirt cheap, I can't see that buying these is that much of a cost savings over a good quality dedicated speaker line.

But anyone who wants to be penny wise and dollar foolish is fine with me. As long as they're not in the same zip code as me.
 
ah, a post above reminds me...a local rental company, EverymanSound, whom I have rented audio gear from a few times, uses cables with twistlock connectors for speaker cables. My guess is they are 20 amp twistlock cables, but I'm not sure, as I have never used a 20 amp twistlock cable :) I have only seen these cables they rent with their systems once also. They grab the cables and connect them together, I think they are 50 feet long each and you tell them how many feet you need, and then on the end they put an adaptor to go to 1/4. On their speakers, instead of 1/4 they had that twistlock connector. I know it wasn't speakon! ;) They are a pretty big company here, one of two that I know of in Gainesville, FL. It seemed they had nice gear, albeit beat up looking, so it might have been their cheap stuff--they might not use those cables on their really high end things. Interesting....
 
Take away the 1/4" adaptor and is the rest of it safe?

If I read your description correctly, I am thinking that there is just one plug and the rest are receptacles. If so, there is no plug to plug risk that occurred with the one posted on the site.

Not saying that it is something that I would use - just curious.

Should I ask what it was/is used for? My guess is triggering strobe/flash lamps perhaps??
 
Perhaps strobe/flash or in just powering up lights in general on 6 amp rated zip cord to a number of fixtures given the outlets.
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Is it safe, whell' it's polarized at least given the speaker plug going into it. What was plugged in otherwise.... If the quickly connected receptacle taps to the parallel cord were also polarized in ensuring that as necessary in the lamp base, the screw base part of it were neutral and not hot. This all given a 1/4" speaker plug is not something I would power up lighting equipment from,
but given the manufacturer it no doubt is the intent to power up lighting gear as you say, it might be safe. This given polorized at least and of less than the amperage for a 1/4" microponone plug. What's that amperage at 120v for it according to the NEC anyway?
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One quick connection un-polarized plug, probably 50' of zip cord with say 10 "add a tap" insulation piercing receptacles that are quick and easy to install added to it. These also while all around plug and receptacle available at least now in the polarized version, were not used in this case. No telling if the neutral was that of the screw base plugged into the add a taps, much less questions about as similar to the debate about the speaker plug in use for 120v.

All I know is I got this adaptor plugged into a un-polorized add a tap plug, a length of 18ga zip cord attached to the plug, and like 10 add a tap also un-polorized receptacles snapped into various locations on the cord. If it's for lighting usage, it's kind of a sleezy way of controlling it. If for photo shoot, running 10 of your lights off a 18ga wire is also bad considering they were not even taking advantage of the polorized safety feature of the adaptor.
 
Agreed - but is it possible that this may have been designed to carry DC voltages?

I was thinking perhaps of a 0-10v system for triggering strobes that already have their power. Although, I expect that you would be using DMX strobes.

For me this is another one where I wonder if the time and effort would would have been better spent on designing and building a system that cannot be connected to power. Or using connectors that were intended for power.
 

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