Hello and is this the right place?

[Hsnopi]

Hello All,
So I'm not sure this is the right place for me to post so I wanted to ask here before diving in.
I'm part of a group that is using VIC-1 radios in restored military vehicles. My current question is about shielding on cables. Is that something I would ask on this site? I'm relatively new to electronics. I can solder, burn myself, make blue puffs of smoke and wire the house successfully.

Thanks
Hsnopi

 

[Martaine2005]

I can solder, burn myself, make blue puffs of smoke

That makes you the perfect member!!
Welcome aboard.

Martin

 

[hevans1944]

Welcome to Electronics Point, @Hsnopi. You have found the right place. Shielding on cables is a complicated subject. Ask away and someone here will try to come up with an answer.

 

[Minder]

Those were after my time, militarily speaking, but all our mobile radio equipment was shielded.
M.

 

[Hsnopi]

Great!
So, I'm part of a reenactment group that just formed and we have a tank. Well, one guy owns it. We get to play with it and such. It's a t-34 modified to look like a tiger. It's actually that tank that was in Saving Private Ryan. It needs work to say the least and we are not rich. Being it's been modified we aren't concerned about refurbishment so much as functionality while keeping it "tanky".

So the owner of the tank has an AM-1780 VIC1, 2 headsets, some cx-4723 and a couple c-2298's. I scored three more cx-2298's off ebay and am negotiating for heasdets with the cables to the c-2298's now. However, I need the cables from the c-2298's to the AM-1780. Lengths vary. They will be connected to a 24v battery, iirc, which is connected to a generator on a detroit diesel. So there is a lot of metal (it's a tank) and noise and I don't really know how much EM noise. However, being the cables are so thick I assumed it was because there was noise. One of the reasons people say they don't use COTS stuff is because of the whine in large metal vehicles.

So from the bow gunners position I need to cable around the tank to the driver, loader, gunner and tank commander positions. Anywhere from 5 feet to maybe 20. Not sure how I'm going to wire up the turret boxes yet to deal with the rotation. The whole system runs on 24V and seems to draw a couple amps.

Any advice at all that you have is good. I'm new to this but they gave it to me because I'm supposedly the one who said "ooh cool, a radio!". I just figure things out and get them working. I was thinking of using cat-6 STP or something but am not sure it's enough. the cables themselves are from the 80's and are huge. Just google CX-4723. Radionerds has the pinouts so if I can score the connectors cheap I can make the cable. Just trying to determine if it's worth it or if I could add features to make it worth in. I've read about braid vs foil, and grounding loops and torroidal magnets (though I'm not sure what they do.)

Any thoughts?

 

[Hsnopi]

or should I post this in the Projects section?

 

[Minder]

If you can spring for it, I would use overall braid shield, I would not think you should have that much problem if shield is grounded, what frequency is any radio using.
I'm assuming the 24v is referenced/connected to the tank frame?
M.

 

[Hsnopi]

I suppose I can ground it to the tank, sure So radio may be the wrong term. Lemme get a pic of it in use. INtercom may be a better name?
https://www.pinztrek.com/pinz/mods/pinzcomms/icom

 

[davenn]

start a thread in general electronics chat and once I see where it is leading I can leave it there or move it somewhere more appropriate

Dave

 

[Hsnopi]

roger