Topic: making 7pin I/O cable from the sbm1 7pin dongle

[dr.ph0b]

if you do the coax mod to your sbm1, and want to put the 7pin dongle to good use, here is how

first get a rca mono splitter from ratshack


drill out the rivet in the center and open the sucker up


unsolder the rca terminals and toss the other crap inside


assuming youve already cut the dongle off.. seperate the wires. there are 2 grey wires inside that are for the transmit and recieve. each has a ground in it also. in our case here, the red will be the transmit.. (digi out) and brown will be the digi in. connect the 2 grounds from each of the grey wire together.


solder the red and brown to each of the rca terminals. a little tape will hold things together for now. the 2 connected ground wires will simply be soldered to the casing. i found it easier to run the ground thru the hole, so it can be better secured with the bolt and nut when assemble the case back. the solder doesnt seem to stick to the case very well.


bolt the sucker together, ull see the end of the ground wire popping out on the edge of the bolt.. a little drop of solder there doesnt hurt either.


label the in/out


and walla! your done!


*important*: one thing i didnt show is that you also need to connect the yellow wire in that cable to the braided sheilding in the cable. if you dont the digi input wont work.

its always good to do a continuity test with a multi-meter to check to make sure your in/out and going to the right pins and isnt shorted to another pin or somehting etc etc.

[caymanreview]

archive material?!?!

[wacky]

any chance of doing this mod to a dongle still attached to the SBM? I used to have an SBM with one. It is the same sequence of wires?

I'd like a coax out on the sbm dongle. if it's possible an input AND ouput.

[Brian Skalinder]

I'd like a coax out on the sbm dongle. if it's possible an input AND ouput.

What do you plan for the SBM-1 to do with the incoming digital signal?

[ashevillain]

What do you plan for the SBM-1 to do with the incoming digital signal?

I wonder is it possible to use an SBM-1 as a passthrough in a chain of portable DAT recorders? What if the dongle was modded to the Oade style I/O to just pass the digital signal from DAT > DAT and patch a JB3 out of the other 7-pin (> optical)?

[wacky]

EXACTLY why I was asking. I see no need to buy some other piece of outboard gear I have to power, if the SBM could just "pass-thru" the digital signal.

[Brian Skalinder]

I'm still lost.  Could someone please explain how this would be useful in a patch chain?  No need to pretend I'm a dumbass and draw it out, I actually am a dumbass in this case - so please make it blatantly clear with a simple picture?  Something like:

       In from ?? (If my SBM-1 is acting as ADC, what's coming in here?  And where would it go?)
      /
     /
dongle
     \
      \
       Out from SBM-1 to master deck

Or are we talking about a situation where you're just patching and don't want to use a separate 7-pin cable?  So it'd be something like this:

       In from master (source) deck
      /
     /
dongle
     \
      \
       Out from master (source) deck to patch deck here (SBM-1 *not* acting as ADC)

Hmmmmm...maybe this is it?  Patch into dongle, patch out of dongle, and incoming patch also routed to 7-pin:

Out to deck             In from master (source) deck
^                      /
|                     /
7pin on SBM-1 [] dongle
                      \
                       \
                        Out from master (source) deck to patch deck here (SBM-1 not acting as ADC)

So the SBM-1 effectively acts as an active splitter?

[wacky]

So say I'm patching at a show. I have a JB3 and an SBM.

I have the 7pin optical cable plugged into my JB3.
I have gotten a COAX patch into the connector you see in this thread that is hacked off of my permanently attached 7pin dongle.

WOULD THIS WORK??

[super-phat-al]

So say I'm patching at a show. I have a JB3 and an SBM.

I have the 7pin optical cable plugged into my JB3.
I have gotten a COAX patch into the connector you see in this thread that is hacked off of my permanently attached 7pin dongle.

WOULD THIS WORK??

thats a good idea, i dont see why it wouldn't work in that case

[Brian Skalinder]

I get it, now.  Thanks, Wacky.   

[ashevillain]

Hmmmmm...maybe this is it?  Patch into dongle, patch out of dongle, and incoming patch also routed to 7-pin:

Out to deck             In from master (source) deck
^                      /
|                     /
7pin on SBM-1 [] dongle
                      \
                       \
                        Out from master (source) deck to patch deck here (SBM-1 not acting as ADC)

So the SBM-1 effectively acts as an active splitter?

I'm thinking this is a possibility...It would be nice to know if it works though! I guess someone has to be a guinea pig and try it out. 

[wacky]

well, this a.m. I tried something similar...wth no luck.

optical in >7-pin plug on SBM> optical out to JB3    PLUS    7pin dongle to  D8

this didn't work. however the light was visible from the optical out. I tried moving the analog/digital switch on the cable and it didn't matter.


it did however work with (which it should)

optical in >7-pin plug on D8> optical out to JB3.

----------

This would have been great for me, as I see no reason to carry another thing for patching.....maybe Todd R. will know why. Maybe I could add a switch to my SBM to enable this feature ;-)

might this work with a modified dongle???

[Todd R]

What you need in this instance is a format converter that passes the original coax signal and also creates an optical signal.  A midiman CO2 does this, though many folks are not fond of it.  This is the trouble with the much beloved Hosa format converter--the coax outs are not active with a coax input being fed it.

The case described above will not work since the SBM1 is not set up to accept a digital signal--it is an analog to digital converter and must get analog inputs, either as 1/4" mic in or RCA line in.  I'm not sure what you'd like to do with the above schematic, either the SBM1 would just be acting as a format converter as desribed above or maybe you'd want to take a digital input of an audio signal and then have the SBM1 perform Sony's proprietary Bit Mapping function to provide a different noise shaping (dither) to the already digitized audio signal.  Not that this would really make since, as the bit mapping is a form of dither which is used to bring a higher bit depth source to a lower bit depth source (eg, dither down a 24 bit signal to a 16 bit signal).  Since the source DAT deck would be passing only a 16 bit signal, which is the bit depth you want to keep, it wouldn't make since to want to try to some sort of Bit Mapping dither on that signal.

Bottom line, it looks to me what you want is a format converter, which the SBM1 is not set up to do.

[wacky]

Todd,
I know about the format converters. I also understand the A/D nature of the SBM.

I was hoping that it might be possible to have the SBM be a sort-of "passthrough" , with or without adding the Super Bit Mapping.  I only want to change the format it was being sent on. i.e. coax or toslink, and possibly feed another patcher.

Since I already have the SBM unit, and don't really want to purchase another box for patching...which rarely happens anyway, I thought this might be possible.

Looks like I'll be taking analog patches with the SBM & JB3.

It was worth discussing though. Thanks folks.

Zach
zach AT Funkytulip DOT Com

[flipp]

Sounds like you need to use Sony's RMR-D3 (usually came as part of RM-D3K) rather than the SBM.  The RMR-D3 has a 7pin as well as both optical and coax digi in and simultaneously feeds both optical and coax digi out. Since you don't want to buy another box, this presents a problem. Another problem is I've never seen an RMR-D3 that doesn't use 120 volts. Anyone know how to mod it for battery power?