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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

RogueLeader wrote:

Ok I saw a kit just like this mentioned earlier which is sold for motorcycles:

http://www.planetheadset.com/motorcycle-headsets.php

These can easily be hook ed up to Motorola Radius SP50 radios which are plentiful on ebay and pretty good

However someone else mentioned this site:

http://www.clubracingradios.com/

and wow thats a great deal and marketed to "Lemons Racers" but it seems others have had problems with these midland headsets?

Based on some of the responses above the Midlands may not be too bad.

The planetheadset looks flashoer then the typical eBay kits but still uses the problematic mini-din connectors.

Same thing with the cheap Club Racing set up.  Sure, it's a Midland helmet kit but those also use crappy mini-dins.

I've made some 2-pin Motorola harnesses which are an improvement over the Mini-din kits.  I can make helmet kits with a plug for ear pieces but I have not found a good source for speakers other than the speakers I have robbed from our cheap kits.

I made a kit using speakers I took out of a set of headphones but I do not think they are loud enough.

Bonedriver posted his comments and a link to Ridercomm.

http://www.hitechwireless.com/RiderComm … 2C129.aspx

I called and talked with these guys a bit yesterday.  The Ridercomm system eliminates the crappy 2 pin connectors in the helmet as well as the mini-dins used in most cheap helmet set-ups.

They sell additional helmet kits for $40.

It looks like a good mid-grade set-up between the $30 cheapies and several hundred doller expensive stuff.

The main draw back is it uses seems to use a semi-proprietary 3.5mm 4 conductor connector.  Basically and 1/8" IMSA style connector where IMSA runs a 1/4" 4 conductor connector.

The guy said they had a race version and he would send me more info but I haven't received it yet.

Troy

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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

Troy wrote:
RogueLeader wrote:

Ok I saw a kit just like this mentioned earlier which is sold for motorcycles:

http://www.planetheadset.com/motorcycle-headsets.php

These can easily be hook ed up to Motorola Radius SP50 radios which are plentiful on ebay and pretty good

However someone else mentioned this site:

http://www.clubracingradios.com/

and wow thats a great deal and marketed to "Lemons Racers" but it seems others have had problems with these midland headsets?

Based on some of the responses above the Midlands may not be too bad.

The planetheadset looks flashoer then the typical eBay kits but still uses the problematic mini-din connectors.

Same thing with the cheap Club Racing set up.  Sure, it's a Midland helmet kit but those also use crappy mini-dins.

I've made some 2-pin Motorola harnesses which are an improvement over the Mini-din kits.  I can make helmet kits with a plug for ear pieces but I have not found a good source for speakers other than the speakers I have robbed from our cheap kits.

I made a kit using speakers I took out of a set of headphones but I do not think they are loud enough.

Bonedriver posted his comments and a link to Ridercomm.

http://www.hitechwireless.com/RiderComm … 2C129.aspx

I called and talked with these guys a bit yesterday.  The Ridercomm system eliminates the crappy 2 pin connectors in the helmet as well as the mini-dins used in most cheap helmet set-ups.

They sell additional helmet kits for $40.

It looks like a good mid-grade set-up between the $30 cheapies and several hundred doller expensive stuff.

The main draw back is it uses seems to use a semi-proprietary 3.5mm 4 conductor connector.  Basically and 1/8" IMSA style connector where IMSA runs a 1/4" 4 conductor connector.

The guy said they had a race version and he would send me more info but I haven't received it yet.

FYI Troy and others, we bought one of these (Rider com) to test since they don't use the POS mini-din.  The problem (in our case) is they will NOT work with a Midland radio.  We are having to send ours back and sadly stick with the POS mini-din fro now.

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53 Reply by WINWAR (edited by WINWAR 2011-02-15 08:35 AM)

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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

Ok, so what do you all recommend to get rid of the dreaded Mini din plugs? What style plug works best?

Also, I have been looking into adapters. Would that help out? If you used a mini din plug-to phone jack or even a USB and then a USB to mini din? That way you could just plug in the mini-din once, maybe even glue it, and then only ever tug on the USB or whatever works.

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54 Reply by VKZ24 (edited by VKZ24 2011-02-15 09:34 AM)

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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

WINWAR wrote:

Ok, so what do you all recommend to get rid of the dreaded Mini din plugs? What style plug works best?

Also, I have been looking into adapters. Would that help out? If you used a mini din plug-to phone jack or even a USB and then a USB to mini din? That way you could just plug in the mini-din once, maybe even glue it, and then only ever tug on the USB or whatever works.

Using a MINI-DIN to USB has be tried by Bill Strong and the impedance was the issue as I understood it.

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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

Boy, the more I get into this, the more I wish I didnt:-)

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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

WINWAR wrote:

Boy, the more I get into this, the more I wish I didnt:-)

I will say though it's been a huge PITA, having a working radio (IMO) is worth it during the race.  Had I known I'd still be doing this 3 years later, I would have ponied up for a big boy NASCAR stype setup and saved myself lots of trouble.  Now we really can't afford (finacially) to ditch what we have and start over.

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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

actually, chopping off the miniDIN connectors and using an RJ11/14/45 jack vs connector sounds like a great idea at this point. with 4 leads you should probably be able to make an adaptor for any walkie out there. the Midland motorcycle headsets seem like the easiest to get ahold of too. Would anyone be game for me to tinker and fab something up?

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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

The RJ11/14/45 locking feature would be a disadvantage for this setup.  If the driver forgets he's plugged in and jumps out of the car, you'll really mess something up.  Maybe the wire, but maybe the headset and/or radio.

Emergency egress would also be effected, but you don't care as much about damaging equipment if it's an emergency.

I've been looking on Digikey and found the 4-conductor jacks but not the plugs yet.  I'll see what I can find.

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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

Hmm that ridercom setup looks good, between that , a couple Motorola SP50 radios, and a bigger headset for the crew chief you're in for about $250 at that point, then $40 per guy for additional headsets.  hmmmmm

I almost feel like we can do the midlands and just be REALLLY careful.  I understand the plugs suck but maybe I could modify 1 setup to put a different plug on then wire that up to each helmet kit.  As long as the Midlands give the sound quality in and out needed, the wiring should not be too bad.

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60 Reply by VKZ24 (edited by VKZ24 2011-02-15 10:37 AM)

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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

Serj wrote:

actually, chopping off the miniDIN connectors and using an RJ11/14/45 jack vs connector sounds like a great idea at this point. with 4 leads you should probably be able to make an adaptor for any walkie out there. the Midland motorcycle headsets seem like the easiest to get ahold of too. Would anyone be game for me to tinker and fab something up?

We had a team member cut up an old one and IIRC he discovered all 6 pins are used.  IOW, no shared ground connection so you need more than a 4-pin setup.

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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

RogueLeader wrote:

Hmm that ridercom setup looks good, between that , a couple Motorola SP50 radios, and a bigger headset for the crew chief you're in for about $250 at that point, then $40 per guy for additional headsets.  hmmmmm

I almost feel like we can do the midlands and just be REALLLY careful.  I understand the plugs suck but maybe I could modify 1 setup to put a different plug on then wire that up to each helmet kit.  As long as the Midlands give the sound quality in and out needed, the wiring should not be too bad.

This seems like where I am at as well.

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62 Reply by dculberson (edited by dculberson 2011-02-15 10:54 AM)

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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

Looks like 4-pin 3.5mm plugs are like hen's teeth, anyway.  Digikey carries the jacks but not the plugs, Farnell UK sells the plugs through Newark Electronics but has a $20 handling fee for US orders.  MCM doesn't have either.

One solution would be a dual 3-pin connector.  You would keep from mixing them up by using a mix of sizes - 1/4" for three conductors and 1/8" for the other three.  You could use panel mount jacks and put them in a plate in the center of the car facing the driver's door - that way if you forget to unplug then you'll just yank the plugs out.  (Putting them in the dash would make you pull perpendicular to the jacks and so you'd just tear the wires off of one end or the other.)  Use heat shrink tubing and wire sleeve and you'd make the cables much stronger.  Rather than the usual nylon sleeve, use the fiberglass stuff, that way it won't melt and drip in a fire.

Just some thoughts - might be overkill but this is stuff I do (used to do for a living, now just a hobby) so I've got most of it in the garage, even the fiberglass sleeve..

Edit: Actually, a way to make the cable even stronger then the sleeve is to stretch a spring and put it on the cables.  You'll see that in industrial motion control systems - a spring steel wire wrapped around cables in high motion settings.  I've achieved the same effect by taking a light gauge tightly wrapped spring and stretching it.  It looks really cool, too - used a bunch of it in my costume for the 2010 summit point race.

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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

dculberson wrote:

Looks like 4-pin 3.5mm plugs are like hen's teeth, anyway.  Digikey carries the jacks but not the plugs, Farnell UK sells the plugs through Newark Electronics but has a $20 handling fee for US orders.  MCM doesn't have either.

One solution would be a dual 3-pin connector.  You would keep from mixing them up by using a mix of sizes - 1/4" for three conductors and 1/8" for the other three.  You could use panel mount jacks and put them in a plate in the center of the car facing the driver's door - that way if you forget to unplug then you'll just yank the plugs out.  (Putting them in the dash would make you pull perpendicular to the jacks and so you'd just tear the wires off of one end or the other.)  Use heat shrink tubing and wire sleeve and you'd make the cables much stronger.  Rather than the usual nylon sleeve, use the fiberglass stuff, that way it won't melt and drip in a fire.

Just some thoughts - might be overkill but this is stuff I do (used to do for a living, now just a hobby) so I've got most of it in the garage, even the fiberglass sleeve..

Edit: Actually, a way to make the cable even stronger then the sleeve is to stretch a spring and put it on the cables.  You'll see that in industrial motion control systems - a spring steel wire wrapped around cables in high motion settings.  I've achieved the same effect by taking a light gauge tightly wrapped spring and stretching it.  It looks really cool, too - used a bunch of it in my costume for the 2010 summit point race.

If it were possible for you or someone else to market such a system for Lemons-type use they would sell.  Say a kit w/o radios that included 4 headsets, in-car harness, and PTT for maybe $200 I'd buy it.  As I see it there would only need to be two options for the radios Midland and Motorola.

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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

VKZ24 wrote:
dculberson wrote:

Looks like 4-pin 3.5mm plugs are like hen's teeth, anyway.  Digikey carries the jacks but not the plugs, Farnell UK sells the plugs through Newark Electronics but has a $20 handling fee for US orders.  MCM doesn't have either.

One solution would be a dual 3-pin connector.  You would keep from mixing them up by using a mix of sizes - 1/4" for three conductors and 1/8" for the other three.  You could use panel mount jacks and put them in a plate in the center of the car facing the driver's door - that way if you forget to unplug then you'll just yank the plugs out.  (Putting them in the dash would make you pull perpendicular to the jacks and so you'd just tear the wires off of one end or the other.)  Use heat shrink tubing and wire sleeve and you'd make the cables much stronger.  Rather than the usual nylon sleeve, use the fiberglass stuff, that way it won't melt and drip in a fire.

Just some thoughts - might be overkill but this is stuff I do (used to do for a living, now just a hobby) so I've got most of it in the garage, even the fiberglass sleeve..

Edit: Actually, a way to make the cable even stronger then the sleeve is to stretch a spring and put it on the cables.  You'll see that in industrial motion control systems - a spring steel wire wrapped around cables in high motion settings.  I've achieved the same effect by taking a light gauge tightly wrapped spring and stretching it.  It looks really cool, too - used a bunch of it in my costume for the 2010 summit point race.

If it were possible for you or someone else to market such a system for Lemons-type use they would sell.  Say a kit w/o radios that included 4 headsets, in-car harness, and PTT for maybe $200 I'd buy it.  As I see it there would only need to be two options for the radios Midland and Motorola.

I've managed to make a 1/2 dozen 2-pin Motorola Car Harness type arrangements.

I'm going to go buy some Midland stuff and try to get that done tonight.

I've made helmet kits as well.  I prefer speakers in the helmet but I have not found speakers I like other than the ones that came on our cheap set-ups.

I've cut open a wire to the cheap kits and the wires are tiny.

Additionally, the PTT is on the mic ground which won't work with NASCAR.

I'll post some pics later today of the Motorola stuff.

Troy

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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

VKZ24 wrote:
Serj wrote:

actually, chopping off the miniDIN connectors and using an RJ11/14/45 jack vs connector sounds like a great idea at this point. with 4 leads you should probably be able to make an adaptor for any walkie out there. the Midland motorcycle headsets seem like the easiest to get ahold of too. Would anyone be game for me to tinker and fab something up?

We had a team member cut up an old one and IIRC he discovered all 6 pins are used.  IOW, no shared ground connection so you need more than a 4-pin setup.

okay, so no RJ11. you still have RJ14, which is a 6P6C connector, or you can use a common RJ45 and leave a a pair of open connectors.

dculberson wrote:

The RJ11/14/45 locking feature would be a disadvantage for this setup.  If the driver forgets he's plugged in and jumps out of the car, you'll really mess something up.  Maybe the wire, but maybe the headset and/or radio.

Emergency egress would also be effected, but you don't care as much about damaging equipment if it's an emergency.

just cut/bend the locking clip off, slap a collar around the connector, then just prep it with electrical tape. another possibility is to just reinforce the mounting plate around the plug. the beauty would be is if all the wiring is replaced with phone/data cabling, in the event the connector gets damaged you could whip out a $30 crimping tool and a plug end and fix it(assuming the damage occurs at the end of the driver's stint, and not the beginning.

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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

Serj wrote:

the beauty would be is if all the wiring is replaced with phone/data cabling, in the event the connector gets damaged you could whip out a $30 crimping tool and a plug end and fix it(assuming the damage occurs at the end of the driver's stint, and not the beginning.

I t would be sweet if someone could come up with a way to use a RJ-45 connector, but the wires need to be sheilded right?  I don't know too much about computer stuff but I don't think a typical data cable has shielding does it?

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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

data cabling mostly uses the twist to shield itself. the inner core of standard cat5e has sheathing on each wire, no shielding. there's some really expensive stuff for high-EMF areas my work still may have a stash of, if so that could be useful, if a little clunky. If i were to set this up, and be able to use it, I'd be building a semi-permanent mount system, that's for sure.

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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

VKZ24 wrote:

We still have some issues, but one thing we did to help with the DIN plug issue is this.  I plugged in each headset and used a Dremel to cut a small groove into each mating connector.  I put some paint on a toothpick and painted that groove.  I did this because those raised alignment "arrows" that come on the plugs don't always line up!  Once you jamb it together and bend the pins you may as well toss in the garabage.

Yep, bending some pins is why we had to toss one headset kit.
A Dremel is fun, but yellow electrical tape and a red Sharpie work just as well for marking the actual alignment arrows.

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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

VKZ24 wrote:
Serj wrote:

actually, chopping off the miniDIN connectors and using an RJ11/14/45 jack vs connector sounds like a great idea at this point. with 4 leads you should probably be able to make an adaptor for any walkie out there. the Midland motorcycle headsets seem like the easiest to get ahold of too. Would anyone be game for me to tinker and fab something up?

We had a team member cut up an old one and IIRC he discovered all 6 pins are used.  IOW, no shared ground connection so you need more than a 4-pin setup.

Oddly, I just got done mapping the pin connections to the 6 pin mini-dins on our motocomm rig.  Near as I can tell the motocomm and ridercomm are the same rig.  Although all 6 pins on the din do "go somewhere" 3 of them wire to the sleeve portion of the headset jack connector for the radio.  For the other two, one wires to the tip (speakers) and the other to the ring, but is switched with the PTT (microphone).  We are trying a USB type A plug setup to see how it goes.  The USB type A adapters for old PS/2 to USB mouse/keyboards expose all the proper connections to a USB cable.  The trick is to get the adapters going both ways (they do exist and are cheap, just have to be willing to order them).  The USB cable holds with enough tension to not fall out easily, yet pulls apart when you want it to and you can't screw up the pins.  I won't know how well this works until we actually go race with it, but I haven't had to cut any of the headsets or harnesses yet, so this is a easily reversible experiment.

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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

My initial journey down this path started with my desire to make a wire to go from the radio to our helmet during pit stops.

The end result is more or less a car harness.

So far all I have made are 2-pin Motorola stuff.  I've picked up 4 watt UHF Motorola's on eBay here and there at pretty reasonable prices.

All the harnesses use a standard 1/4" Stereo/NASCAR plug.

I used standard RCAs for the PTTs.

Aside from the radio plug, the rest of the stuff can be replaced with common parts from Radio Shack or probably even most hardware stores.

Here are some picks of what I've got so far.

Basic Harness:

http://angiem357.smugmug.com/Troy/Race-Gear/P2140019/1189090199_jEmGU-S.jpg

Harness with Remote PTT:

http://angiem357.smugmug.com/Troy/Race-Gear/P2140020/1189090193_Rjowp-S.jpg

A couple of PTTs:

http://angiem357.smugmug.com/Troy/Race-Gear/P2140021/1189090260_42WA4-S.jpg

Helmet kit for Ear Buds:

http://angiem357.smugmug.com/Troy/Race-Gear/P2140023/1189090348_kTAML-S.jpg

1 Piece Helmet Kit (I am still working on a source for speakers.)

http://angiem357.smugmug.com/Troy/Race-Gear/P2140022/1189090345_Z3RZe-S.jpg

I've made several of these with plastic as well as metal connectors.  I figure the metal stuff can be a heavy duty version.

I am working on a harness for the Midlands as well as a wire with an inline PTT for the Motorola.

Troy

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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

These look great! The fact that you are making these for our specific needs is what really makes the difference. PLEASE, let me know when you have something ready for sale. I will find a radio that will work with what you build.

We have a race in April, any ideas if you could have a few helmet kits with PTT hookup ready by then? Really looking nice here.

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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

Troy wrote:

My initial journey down this path started with my desire to make a wire to go from the radio to our helmet during pit stops.

The end result is more or less a car harness.

So far all I have made are 2-pin Motorola stuff.  I've picked up 4 watt UHF Motorola's on eBay here and there at pretty reasonable prices.

All the harnesses use a standard 1/4" Stereo/NASCAR plug.

I used standard RCAs for the PTTs.

Aside from the radio plug, the rest of the stuff can be replaced with common parts from Radio Shack or probably even most hardware stores.

Here are some picks of what I've got so far.

Basic Harness:

http://angiem357.smugmug.com/Troy/Race- … EmGU-S.jpg

Harness with Remote PTT:

http://angiem357.smugmug.com/Troy/Race- … jowp-S.jpg

A couple of PTTs:

http://angiem357.smugmug.com/Troy/Race- … 2WA4-S.jpg

Helmet kit for Ear Buds:

http://angiem357.smugmug.com/Troy/Race- … TAML-S.jpg

1 Piece Helmet Kit (I am still working on a source for speakers.)

http://angiem357.smugmug.com/Troy/Race- … 3RZe-S.jpg

I've made several of these with plastic as well as metal connectors.  I figure the metal stuff can be a heavy duty version.

I am working on a harness for the Midlands as well as a wire with an inline PTT for the Motorola.

Those look great Troy.  Assuming you get the Midland stuff done how would I be looking at for the following:

4 helmet kits for earbuds, but not including the actual earbuds
1 wiring harness for the radio with remote PTT.

Just an approx figure would be good.

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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

Yeah, those look really nice!

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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

That is what we would be looking for as well I think. Seems the earbuds might be easier as you say the volume on the speakers are too low. With the earbud being able to unplug, one could also upgrade to speakers if they found them at a later point.

On the PTT, where would you mount that? Most seem to have velcro for steering mounts. Yours looks a bit different.

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  • VKZ24
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Re: Cheap, Easy, and Usable In-Car Comm

WINWAR wrote:

On the PTT, where would you mount that? Most seem to have velcro for steering mounts. Yours looks a bit different.

If you have a wheel with spokes you just drill a hole and add the PTT there.  In our case using the stuff that came with the Midland heatsets, we used the velcro mount to attach the PTT to the e-brake handle.

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'93 Acura Integra - No VTEC Yo!

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