Chris Reitz dot Com

The TC-PDT's Krone head

ok, so I got my punchdown tool yesterday, and spent a little while (2 hours – HA!) punching some audio cable down. I think I gave the thing a pretty decent workout.

First of all, I’ll say it’s waaaay better than the screwdriver I was using before. It punches wires down very nicely, with a lot less effort and problems than the screwdriver approach.

That having been said, there’s good reason why the TC-PDT cost $16 and the one from Full Compass that I’d mentioned before cost $170. it’s a little tough to tell in the photo (sorry about the bad focus—cell phone pic), but it’s got a little chisel blade on the side of it, that’s supposed to cut off the wire, so it’s flush with the side of the punch block. It doesn’t work all that well. It sort of cuts off the wire, but kind of leaves it hanging, and if you punch the wire down at the wrong angle, you can shave plastic off the punch block itself. Whoopsie.

From what I’ve seen, the $170 tool has a little wire cutter at the end that snips off the wire, like a pair of scissors. That seems to me to be a better design. That having been said, $170 for a tool that I’m going to use probably another ten times ever would be just a wee bit impractical.

All said, I’d say the tool is really good for the money.

A Punch Block

OK, so my radio station moved, and they didn’t need a couple extra Krone punch blocks and a really nice big (3′x6′!) desk.  So, I took the punch blocks, and my brother helped me grab the desk. And then, because our band’s studio has been in pieces for about a year, we figured it might be cool to redo it using the desk as an editing desk, and, of course, using the punch blocks.

First of all, note that some of this stuff (in particular using a screwdriver to punch wires down) only works on Krone punch blocks.

Second, note that you’re probably going to get a better punch down if you use a punch down tool. Same way cutting wood works a lot better with a saw than with a hammer.

Third, (and this is partly why I used the screwdriver approach) I had trouble locating a nice cheap punch tool. Full Compass sold one for $70 (tip not included, and about $100 extra). I talked to my rep at Full Compass and he told me that they’d only ever sold one of those, so he suspected they weren’t the way to go. After a bit of googling, he suggested this from Newegg, for $16. Obviously, it’s more cheaply made, but theoretically, if you’re not a broadcast engineer, punching stuff down every day, you should be able to get along with the cheap tool. When it arrives in the mail, I’ll try it out and see.

So basically, what I wanted to run is balanced audio from the board to the blocks, and then balanced audio from the blocks back out to other stuff like an EQ, DAW, and a bunch of ports where you can plug instruments in.

A TRS Plug

First step, make the plugs. Sorry, I didn’t get a shot of how I made an XLR plug. They aren’t hard to make. My biggest issue with making any kind of connectors is I’m not good at working with tiny stuff, so it takes me a while. But after about 5-6 TRS plugs, I was pretty much clipping along. No pun intended.

Once I had the tip made, I threaded it through the table, to the punch blocks, and punched it down. For those of you who haven’t punched stuff down before, you don’t have to strip the wires.

Tinning the ground wire

I found that, because the ground wire was bare and stranded,  it was a lot easier to punch down if I tinned it with a little bit of solder first. Then using a 1/8″ Craftsman flat blade screwdriver, I just forced each wire into a slot, bare, black, red, bare, black, red (aka ground, cold, hot).

Punching down with a screwdriver

The reason why I mention that it’s a 1/8″ Craftsman screwdriver is because, as I said before, some screwdrivers won’t work. I tried two other screwdrivers before I found that the Craftsman worked. I think it was a combination of slot width, and the fact that the sides of that particular screwdriver’s blade were grooved, which seemed to help keep the screwdriver from slipping out of the slot I was trying to punch the wire into.

I haven’t had the opportunity to run audio through the setup yet and see how it sounds, but so far, I’m really impressed. For about $65 worth of cable and connectors and two free punch blocks, looks like I’ll be able to make a whole studio. Pretty legit.

Totally different note, I need to write up how I’m making some old disgusting studio foam look schnazzy again. Next time I’m making some, I’ll try to remember to take pictures.

Top view of cable routing

Pretty, ain’t she, at least so far?