Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems diy comms cable

i'm awaiting a custom-length comms cable from my dealer, and in the interim rolled my own (S5-type not M5-style). i thought i'd post the info here for future reference since i wasn't able to find it anywhere when i looked.

my local electronics superstore stocks both styles of DIN connectors that Meridian uses - the "M" connectors (for lack of a better name) that connect to the 500 units and the "S" connectors that connect to the speakers. no problem finding them - i guess they're pretty standard.

i successfully built an S5-style cable, but also include some M5-style info below - can't speak to complexities of building an M instead of an S, but it doesn't seem like rocket science.

for cable, i took a 25' cat5 10baseT networking wire i had lying around and snipped the RJ45 ends off. i figured that comms is just a data network - can't be any magic in the type of data wiring used.

looking at the male DIN connector with the curve of pins pointing down in a semi-circle (ie: the lower half of the circle is pins, the top half of the circle is nada), i numbered them 1 through 5 counting counterclockwise from the 9:00 (S) or 10:00 (M) position. this is aparently NOT how they're "officially" numbered [1-4-2-5-3 ???]. you can shoot me if you like, but it won't change the fact that the numbering doesn't matter :-). finally, pin "C" denotes the metal collar of the connector, which is a conductor itself.

for a speaker-to-speaker S5-style comms cable (what i made) you connect 1 to 1, 3 to 3, 4 to 4, and then tie 3 to C at both ends. 2 and 5 are dead.

for a 500-to-speaker M5-style comms cable the pin-outs are slightly different based on my testing (again, i did not build and test one of these, so double-check my math before you fry something!!!!!). connect 3 to 3, 4 to 4, and tie 3 to C again like above. 1, 2, and 5 are unused.

as a side note, i'd be interested in hearing why they chose to use two different connectors and two different pin-outs. anybody know?

note, finally, that i did not do the tests to figure out the pin-outs for an M-M cable (between components) since we usually have an excess of these (at least i do).

i hope this is useful to somebody someday! if anyone has any comments or notes any errors in my work, please reply so future readers are better clued in than i!

thanks,
sab

[This message has been edited by SAB (edited 02-17-2001).]

A note about the numbering of the DIN connector:

The DIN series is a useful little set of connectors, particularly the 3, 5 and 7 pin varieties. The three pin, seven pin and five pin 180 degree connectors are compatible in that a three pin plug will fit a 5 or 7 pin socket, and a five pin plug will also fit a 7 pin socket.

The pin numbering is consistent, such that pins 1, 2 and 3 of the 3 pin connector match up with pins 1, 2 and 3 of the 5 and 7 pin connectors.

The same with the 5 pin plug and the 7 pin socket.

It makes sense when you look at it from afar.

I should mention, at this point, that the 270 degree and 360 degree versions of the 5 pin connector are not compatible with this scheme.

Simon.