z-link

[garyb]

no.

[Immanuel]

Well, I guess there is a reasonable limit to how much we can expect them to extend their current products to keep them compatible with the products from a company, which went out of business more than 2½ years ago.

This is after all more than the standard warranty period of consumer products (-10dB) ... and on top of that, they didn't even ever have to support anything from Creamware (Audio).

Not much to blame/ask them for there. A little note, that it doesn't support the Luna 2496 box from Creamware/Creamware Audio might be all.

[JoPo]

Ralf answer :

Hi JoPo,

let me ask for that.

It is possible, that XITE only works together with A16 Ultra,
but let me find out. The difference is that the Creamware LunaBox
needs electrical power from Z-Link port.


The same as what we was thinking.....

He's making some research... He seems to not be sure.

[kylie]

He's making some research... He seems to not be sure.

well, he's not the engineer...

anyway, they call this interface Z-Link. it was called Z-Link before, by a different company. although it is a proprietary interface one could assume that the same name could mean same specs, so one is not wrong expecting the port to supply power because it did before. how should the end user distinguish CW-Link from SC-Link?
it would have been a nice move from S|C either to rename it or to state explicitly that it is not fully compatible to the Creamware Z-Link interface, so we'd have been warned
they are in no way obliged to support all CW legacy, fine, but keeping the name might suggest they do, in this case...

let's see what ralf will come up with.

[JoPo]

I totally agree !

[sharc]

Was the power supply issue not the reason that we can't make z-link connections between multiple Scope systems?

If there is no power supplied on xite z-link....Where's that bright idea smiley when you need it

OK - before I start getting the blame for 1,000's of Euros worth of damage, it wasn't my idea...right?

[sharc]

thats a job for those $$$ guinea pigs that usually buy anything to be first and brag here...

I'll get my coat...

[JoPo]

that's it... The support answered to me...

They offer me a good price for an A 16 if I send them my both luna boxes. The problem is that I don't have any more money, even for a good price and I'll not have anymore analog I/O for I don't know how many time...

I think I'm going to keep my luna on my old pci boards connected via ADAT to the xite-1.

[kylie]

did they mention why your setup is not gonna work? I mean, if they offer you an exchange they almost admitted there IS something that prevents use of the luna boxes (and bus power is my #1 candidate).

[JoPo]

Yes... It is simply that there is no power supply on the z-link xite and the luna boxes need one.

[kylie]

well, that explains it all
if there was another official statement that the xite-1 z-link will ignore bus power if supplied, this could mean the idea of hooking xite to pci via z-link reborn

[at0m]

Also Z-Link and Luna2496 problems recently. Either Z-Link A or B LED's on Samplerate-panel in Scope blink at most, sometimes they don't come on at all...

Tried swapping daughterboard to another host card (and PCI slot), and tried other Firewire cables with no joy. Gonna pay a visit to fellow pulsarian next week and try swapping there, to at least exclude the daughterboard or the Luna2496.

After getting my Scope card back from SC where it'd been for repair (hey SC guys, I shipped in the complete original box, now please send it back to me!!), I'm not feeling much for living without a daughterboard for a couple weeks.

I wonder, reading this topic, weither the issue might be related to Scope v5 beta which I'm using. Hence my posting here...

[JoPo]

well, that explains it all
if there was another official statement that the xite-1 z-link will ignore bus power if supplied, this could mean the idea of hooking xite to pci via z-link reborn

If I understand well what you say, you want to connect Xite to scope pci via z-link directly ? If yes, i don't think it is possible and you may damage the hardware... You should ask SC first..!

[kylie]

well, that explains it all
if there was another official statement that the xite-1 z-link will ignore bus power if supplied, this could mean the idea of hooking xite to pci via z-link reborn

If I understand well what you say, you want to connect Xite to scope pci via z-link directly ? If yes, i don't think it is possible and you may damage the hardware... You should ask SC first..!

1) yes, I'd like to, or let's say I would think about it if I had a xite
2) I don't see why not, provided the circumstances are as described (xite would be able to ignore z-link power, would not supply power itself, and would not be damaged if hooked to a device that supplies it)
3) I already did, but no response so far.

[Immanuel]

2) I don't see why not, provided the circumstances are as described (xite would be able to ignore z-link power, would not supply power itself, and would not be damaged if hooked to a device that supplies it)

Have you considered, that signals are sent with a certain current too, and you don't know about the wiring scheme ("pin configaration") of the Z-link on the cards and Xite and on the A16u and the 2496 ......

[kylie]

2) I don't see why not, provided the circumstances are as described (xite would be able to ignore z-link power, would not supply power itself, and would not be damaged if hooked to a device that supplies it)

Have you considered, that signals are sent with a certain current too, and you don't know about the wiring scheme ("pin configaration") of the Z-link on the cards and Xite and on the A16u and the 2496 ......

you are right, I don't know. all my knowledge is based on some vague details given by CW. the main idea is still (imho):

- they use the standard ieee1394 basic protocol stack
- they run proprietary extensions on top of that basic stack to make it carry 16 channel audio and clocking and such
- they use the basic firewire signaling and current scheme for not having to develop their own chips for it
- they use bus power as normal firewire does, too, but they missed out to make scope cards ignoring it or at least the basic protocol does not implement a mechanism to tell the supplying device not to send power during the negotiation phase (something that ordinary firewire surely has, because bus power would fry normal firewire to firewire connections as well, if there was no mechanism to prevent this, which is, although I not exactly know, most probably implemented in the protocol stack)

I still see a certain chance for this to work, but I would in no case recommend to test it, until explicitly corfirmed by SC, of course. I still have no answer from them, and there is still no xite hardware manual like there is for the pci cards.

[kylie]

Right, we need a guinea pig to try.
Who has too much money and is keen on risking a xite and a scope PCI ?

if there is still some money left, one could hook 2 xites together and see what happens. ultimate knowledge for about 10k eur. I know few occasions where perfect clarity is that cheap...

[siriusbliss]

Right, we need a guinea pig to try.
Who has too much money and is keen on risking a xite and a scope PCI ?

oink, oink...

...well... Xite and PCI running concurrently here for months now - just not as merged extensions of each other.
TWO fully operational Scope systems ARE running here at the same time via ADAT - to the point where I almost don't really personally care about z-link anymore.

Greg

[JoPo]

I don't know wich advantage there would be to link xite with pci board via z-link cause I may do it via ADAT and it works very well without to take any risk.
And linking via z-link looks really risky, so I'm not going to try. The link via ADAT offers me 16 stereo canals wich are enough to my system :
I'm keeping my pci boards with my both luna to have 16 analog stereo I/O wich I send to the ADAT via a mixer to the xite. If I need more analog I/O one day, I'll think about buying the A16.
The xite has 3 analog in : 2 for microphone (in front of the rack) & 1 stereo with XLR plug. It is much enough for me.

[sharc]

I don't know wich advantage there would be to link xite with pci board via z-link cause I may do it via ADAT and it works very well without to take any risk.

z-link is 24/96.

S/MUX ADAT can manage this, but you lose half the channels.

...But if you're running Scope (and any external digital devices) at 16-bit 44kHz, this isn't an issue.