My question is somewhat rhetorical and this is mostly a rant.
Whoever thought the one piece back shell for the PMA audio panel was a good idea should have to do all of the harnesses themselves. The opening in the back is so small that you need to have at least 3" of single conductors past the shield terminations in order to be able to place the back shell on the wire bundle before setting the pins in the d-sub connector. And with the HD pins, it's already tight working conditions. Basically, all of your shield terminations - and there are a lot of them - need to be well outside of the back shell. This means you need long ground wire for those shield terminations and that all of the wire support that the back shell provides is for the light part of the wire, conductors only.
I've included a picture that shows the pieces involved in the back shell assembly. The one piece back shell needs to be in place before setting the pins, then the 2 cable clips get attached (they conveniently make it as difficult as they can by using an integrated but loose clip that is supposed to retain the backing nut but actual just makes it so you can't clamp the hut to be able to thread the screw). Finally the retaining clip is used to secure the assembly to the back plate.
One comment about the picture, this is my first pass at the harness while disassembling. I'm rebuilding the harness with direct connections to the other ends. So I will need to do this all over again. There are 7 shielded cable terminations on the J1 connector. I soldered and used heat shrink to try to keep the termination diameter down. My second attempt uses solder sleeves that shrink down better than this.
So my question is this. Can I just not use the back shell? I can still secure the connector to the backplate with the retaining clip and I can still stabilize the wire bundle. I just wouldn't have to swear as much.
Whoever thought the one piece back shell for the PMA audio panel was a good idea should have to do all of the harnesses themselves. The opening in the back is so small that you need to have at least 3" of single conductors past the shield terminations in order to be able to place the back shell on the wire bundle before setting the pins in the d-sub connector. And with the HD pins, it's already tight working conditions. Basically, all of your shield terminations - and there are a lot of them - need to be well outside of the back shell. This means you need long ground wire for those shield terminations and that all of the wire support that the back shell provides is for the light part of the wire, conductors only.
I've included a picture that shows the pieces involved in the back shell assembly. The one piece back shell needs to be in place before setting the pins, then the 2 cable clips get attached (they conveniently make it as difficult as they can by using an integrated but loose clip that is supposed to retain the backing nut but actual just makes it so you can't clamp the hut to be able to thread the screw). Finally the retaining clip is used to secure the assembly to the back plate.
One comment about the picture, this is my first pass at the harness while disassembling. I'm rebuilding the harness with direct connections to the other ends. So I will need to do this all over again. There are 7 shielded cable terminations on the J1 connector. I soldered and used heat shrink to try to keep the termination diameter down. My second attempt uses solder sleeves that shrink down better than this.
So my question is this. Can I just not use the back shell? I can still secure the connector to the backplate with the retaining clip and I can still stabilize the wire bundle. I just wouldn't have to swear as much.