Array Looms - Martin Audio MLA User Manual

MLA System
USER GUIDE
Every rental company has their own preferred method for looming cables. The quickest, cheapest and most easily maintained
(although arguably the least robust) method is to use standard black PVC electrical tape.
Another method is to use expandable braided sleeving ("snakeskin"as it is widely known) perhaps with some adhesive lined
heatshrink sleeving at each end to keep the braiding tidy. This makes for very professional and hard-wearing looms albeit with a
slight loss of flexibility.
Finally short lengths of either heatshrink or Neoprene sleeving can be used in a similar way to PVC tape but offering a neater and
harder wearing finish. Heatshrink sleeve is available in a number of different thicknesses and obviously looming cables needs the
thickest available to offer the most rugged solution.

Array Looms

Rental companies will also be familiar with having to build looms for longer cable runs; perhaps a returns system will have an
audio multicore, an optical or coaxial digital console feed and a mains run to power front of house. These will often be loomed
together to speed set up and breakdown. Similar techniques can be used with the cables which need to reach from the Master
and Slave racks up to flown arrays. Cable lengths and exactly how the cables are loomed needs careful planning. The diagram
bellows shows a typical array loom at each end;-
At the rack end of the loom the two network cables are loomed together as they are destined for connection close together on
the patch panel. The Inclinometer reader can be placed on top of the rack so the cable can be loomed with a similar free length
of around a meter. The audio input may be connected to one of the Merlin outputs on the patch panel so could be loomed with
the U-Net network cables. The Mains feed via the Tourmate connector is at the bottom of the rack so can be a little shorter than
the other connections. The Tourmate array cable is 5m shorter than the 35m network, audio and an inclinometer cables so is
naturally going to be the shortest run. There is likely to be some excess cable which should be coiled and taped into the loom at
the rack end prior to the break-out.
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