Connect a CCU-TX50 to a Telex intercom

This is one of those insanely specific blog posts, just aimed at helping anyone else suffering the issues I’ve just dealt with.
If you have a CCU-TX50 (generally connected to a sony DXC-D55 camera), and you want to integrate it with a Telex intercom system, you’ll have some difficulty. With the old Sony CCU-TX7, there were XLR jacks on the body to support Telex/RTS. Plug and play. The new, slimmer CCU has gone to a dsub 25pin connector for intercom, tally and program audio. You’ll need to hassle your Sony service provider, (or go here to get the pin-out. Here’s where it gets interesting.
The AU board has incorrect silkscreened labels – they’re backwards from reality. So, if you want to use an RTS intercom, all of the board switches should be set to 4Wire. There is a tech bulletin on this, if you have access to the UK Sony support site.
Next, you’ll find that your RTS system has three wires, a ground and a wire for each of the two channels. The CCU has one pin for input and one pin for output (plus a ground) on each channel. The diagram implies that you can use a single pin for both, but as best as I can tell that’s incorrect. Instead, you need to short together an input and output pin. So, for the producer channel, short pins 14 and 17 (connecting either the hot or the cold from RTS to both), and put your ground on pin 16. If you don’t have any sparks, you should be good to go. Flip the switch on the front of the CCU to “prod” and see what happens. Victory is yours.

9 thoughts on “Connect a CCU-TX50 to a Telex intercom

  1. I am very interested to connect a 2-wire beltpack type comms system to a CCU-TX50.
    I have looked at the pin-out diagram for the D-25 as suggested by the web link. It shows the comms lines as balanced pairs plus a ground, NOT single wires as you appear to be suggesting? Also, system appears to be 4-wire?
    Info on the web http://www.epanorama.net/links/intercom.html
    shows the pin info for RTS, Clearcom, TP etc which shows the 3 lines as 1. GND, 2. DC+24v, 3. Audio.
    The Sony diagram shows pins 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. Your suggestion is to link pins 14 and 17, and connect the RTS audio wire to this link? What to do with pins 15 and 18? What method is used to connect multiple CCU’s together – just parallel together in the same way?
    Please help. Ross.

  2. Pin two on the rts system is actually dc voltage plus channel one. Pin three is just channel 2. If you needed to use both channels, you could split pin two to ENG talk/recv and pin there to prod talk/recv. You don’t need a balanced pair for rts, just the positive and the ground. It’s definitely a little weird, but it does work. For multiple ccus, I have a splitter block that feeds my whole intercom. You could probably daisy chain them as well, but I didn’t try that.

  3. I contacted Sony and was able to get a White Paper titled: Connecting Intercom to the SONY CCU.pdf. It has detailed information about connecting to the CCU-TX50 intercom and setting the proper dip switches on the AU-300 board. I have placed some of the relevant information below but do not have a good way to host the PDF file. You can get a copy of the entire file by calling Sony Broadcast Technical Support at 800-883-6817.
    ___________________________________________
    RTS Connections
    Connect to pins 1 and 3 to use the Engineering channel, pins 14 and 16 to use the
    Production channel.
    Set S204 and S205 on the AU-300 Board to “RTS

  4. i have CCU TX – D50 SONY 8 camera set up all camera talkback system is internally working fine . but how to connect party line or clear com intercom system for stage show . Please let me know about this how we can connect & configuration of all camera & party line system with beltpacks unit.camera plug is D-25 pin .
    regards
    Rakesh Patel

  5. i have CCU TX – D50 SONY 8 camera set up all camera talkback system is internally working fine . but how to connect party line or clear com intercom system for stage show . Please let me know about this how we can connect & configuration of all camera & party line system with beltpacks unit.camera plug is D-25 pin .
    regards
    Rakesh Patel

  6. You won’t believe this, your writeup has helped us a big deal. I’ve been trying to figure this out for 2 years ! Now our 2 TX50 can fit into our other 6 TX7s…Thanks!

  7. I know this is a old post, but hopefully someone is still reading new comment.
    It there any risk of damaging the CCU by connecting the 24V/CH1-line to a system with the switches set to 4W?

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