DIY snake

[Tom Smit]

I know someone that got a 52 channel snake, length unknown at the moment, that is to be raw material for a new snake. The idea is to take, say 24 channels out of the jacket, and make a new portable snake. Does anyone have a suggestion for what to use as a jacket. I was thinking of braided nylon sleeve. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=braide ... &ia=images

[Bruce Weldy]

I know someone that got a 52 channel snake, length unknown at the moment, that is to be raw material for a new snake. The idea is to take, say 24 channels out of the jacket, and make a new portable snake. Does anyone have a suggestion for what to use as a jacket. I was thinking of braided nylon sleeve. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=braide ... &ia=images

I've use that braided sheath on the fan end of a snake for individual cables. Honestly, I don't think it would work that well for a multipair situation. First of all, trying to feed the cables through it might be horrendous. It will bunch up and isn't all that durable to be on the ground and stepped on.

Also, there's a good chance that the individual wires inside won't be encased in a jacket. Often, snakes just have the foil wrap around the wires for each channel.

Why not just keep the snake the way it is and just use the number of pairs that you need?

Bottom line, really hard to give you a good answer until you actually get your hands on it see what's underneath.


But, for you viewing pleasure.....here's the 30 plus year old snake that I brought back from the dead. All new Neutrik connectors. It was an old 24x4 snake. But, I built it where it could convert to a 22x6 if needed....just use the last returns instead of 23-24.

It's been a great snake. Never caused me a minute of down time or failure.....or course, once I built it, I put it in a tub and it hasn't moved from my garage since. Anyone want to buy a snake?

[dlv]

+1 to everything Bruce said. Only reason I can see to try and reduce the number of conductors is weight. Having spent years on a weekly load in/out with 200' of 56ch multicore I can understand that. But for all the reasons he said you're still probably best off just using what channels you want in that multicore and save the others for spares.

[Rich4349]

What about going digital via Cat5e / 6 / 7 cable? The image below is just an example, not a specific recommendation for your application.

https://www.amazon.com/Receiver-Etherco ... T6QYY?th=1

[Seth]

What about going digital via Cat5e / 6 / 7 cable? The image below is just an example, not a specific recommendation for your application.

https://www.amazon.com/Receiver-Etherco ... T6QYY?th=1

That's a handy deal. Not digital, but still handy to run four analog leads long distances over relatively inexpensive CAT cabling.

[Bruce Weldy]

You have to make sure that you are using a shielded ethercon cable. And I wouldn't want to do too long of a run with that. Really tiny gauge wire in those ethercon cables.

And honestly, for that price plus the price of the cable, you can buy a budget stage snake that will get you 8 channels.

[Seth]

[Bruce Weldy]

Very interesting. Got a feeling the results would be different if those cable were actually stretched out over those long distances as opposed to being coiled inside a building.

He's using SuperCat6 cable. That stuff is pretty much like mic cable. Roughly 24ga for the Elite Core SuperCat 6 - and that's almost $100 for a 20 foot cable. Found some Amazon stuff that's shielded, but doesn't list the gauge at $36 for 25 feet.

I still contend, that for the price, a standard copper stage snake will get you more channels with every channel shielded (not just one shield around the whole thing), fatter copper, and less problems with broken connectors......because you know most people will cheap out on the cable and end up with standard RJ45s insead of ethercon.

I like the concept - it's great to use small cable to couple the mixer to stage boxes digitally and not have to carry a heavy multi-channel snake. But for stage snakes, old school is still best. If you notice at the start of the video, he references stage snakes as being at the end of the string. I bet they use standard stage snakes.