starcom intercom cables/connectors.adaptors

explodst1100

Joined
Aug 9, 2010
Messages
58
Location
ilford
Bike
st 1100
Had the intercom a while it's the later digital jobby. wont go into the pros and cons of it.
But am finding the life span and quality of various cables/connecters somewhat lacking mainly the connecter and cable supplied to connect my nokia phone have had to replace them a few times since i've had the unit in paticular the short 3.5 mm jack plug to the 2.5 mm jack socket not great quality and flamin expensive for what they are.
i tracked down the genuine NOKIA adapter AD-53 much better quality much better design but sadly although i can hear people who ring me, i can hear the music on the phone but the caller cannot hear me am i doing something wrong? have starcom designed their own cables/connecters so reasonably priced stuff cannot be obtained? i found another not nokia 3.5 MM JACK PLUG TO 2.5 MM JACK SOCKET but from a company called KENNABLES again far better quality than the one that comes from starcom far cheaper but again the caller cannot hear me talk but i can hear the caller clearly. Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated as i use the intercom mainly for the phone in my work. Many Thanks Gareth. p.s. will try n sort some pictures of the various connectors to upload to aid recognition of fault
 
ok really baffled now, ok after more testing n trying n such dug out an old nokia with the same 3.5 mm jack for headphones and problem gone away i dont know how or why because if i use the adaptor that comes with starcom both phones are fine if i use either of the other adaptor i have that did not come with starcom the original phone dont work but the old nokia i dug out works fine with all 3 adaptors arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
 
I know you can use some other cables but there are some things with other cables that are special.

For instance the headset extension cables are simple PS2 keyboard extension cables. While they are getting harder to find because most PC keyboards have moved to USB but I still have a few that I have been using in place of the Stacom ones. Some of the other cables use the old S-Video cable format. For instance the cables for radios use S-Video.

Other stuff, I have found are special. This is the GPS and Cell cables like you found. I had been having an issue for quite some time where people couldn't hear me on the Cell but I could hear them fine. My setup is a little different than yours because I have the Starcom Advance. That is hooked up to my Garmin Zumo 550 and my cell is paired to the Garmin via Bluetooth. I fought and fought with this and nothing seemed to fix it. I tried various settings and in the end it turned out to be the cable run from the Starcom to the Zumo. The cable I had been using is now said to only work with the Zumo 660. I picked up the cable that they now say works with the 550 and sure enough it works fine and people can hear me. So there is something with their cables where they work with some devices but not others. Just because the plugs fit, it doesn't mean that it will actually worked as expected. That is my experience at least. Not sure how much that helps and it doesn't explain why it seems to work now...
 
i really dont know i have 3 adaptor/connectors all basically the same format as far as i can tell ie;- 4 pole 3.5 mm jack plug to 2.5 mm jack socket all 3 work on an old basically nokia non smart phone but only the one that i think i got from starcom works with nokia 5800 music express phone as it's called. i am wondering if maybe a software update might do something, might try that soon. i have the starcom digital and a zumo 660, the phone is blutoothed to zumo but hard wired to starcom mainly so i can listen to the music on phone. i have been considering a new phone but no idea what and i would have to be 100% certain it would work correctly with my setup
 
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Not 100% sure this would work but can you play music on your phone and listen to it over bluetooth via the Zumo 660? The Zumo 660 supports A2DP which is the stereo bluetooth protocol. I am thinking it would simplify the connections and would save you from having to mess with cables not only on this phone but whatever you get for your next phone as well. I guess that if your current phone doesn't support A2DP then that might not work as well. I haven't looked at this that much because my Zumo 550 doesn't support A2DP so I wouldn't have stereo music. I keep my music (MP3) on my Zumo so I can easily control it and keep my phone tucked away to where it is protected from the weather.

The thing is with the phone and GPS type connections that there is some other magic going on in the back end. For instance there are issues with ground loop when you hook two items powered from the bike together. Like a radio and a GPS. There most likely are things like that going on with the phone.
 
It's been a while since I hooked all this up, but with regards to the caller not hearing you is due (iirc) an isolated mic cable. Again, mines been installed for several years but I do recall this one busting my balls and miffed about having to buy the zumo cable with mic. HTH
 
stoc445 said:
It's been a while since I hooked all this up, but with regards to the caller not hearing you is due (iirc) an isolated mic cable. Again, mines been installed for several years but I do recall this one busting my balls and miffed about having to buy the zumo cable with mic. HTH
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Yeah, like I said I fought this one for two years because they said the new cable that came out when the 660 came out worked with the 550. Eventually they reversed that. I think there is something about the isolated mic that isn't the same from device to device. Once I went to the older cable that was designed for the 550, my issues went away. I can now talk on the cell. This is why I mentioned it may be better to use a standard (blutooth) for the connection to the phone. Then use cables to hook up to the Zumo. I tend to keep my GPS devices longer than I keep cell phones. The gotcha is the music being played from the cell phone but I think this is possible. I just haven't done it. With close to 1000 songs on my Garmin and XM Radio on the 550, I really don't need more music on the phone. I do know people use things like Pandora on their phone though. For me I haven't gone down that option though because of a lack in means of securing the phone to the bike that I liked and wanting to protect it from the elements where my Garmin stuff is all waterproof. If I were a fair weather rider I might look more at the phone option.
 
I currently run the Zumo 660 with the Starcom Advance system and have my iPhone 5 bluetoothed to the system and find it works really well. I use the Zumo for music by adding to the Micro SD card so I don't have the need to charge the phone as often because I am using it for music. I also change the Zumo over to another bike and run a Sena SMH5 headset on another helmet, and again find it runs without any hitch.

Sennister I would be interested in finding out which cables you have had success with running S-Video cables/PS2 cables as I am up for some replacements and have the bike apart as we speak. Would be better to pay $5 for an extension cable rather than $30.
 
Tackleberry said:
Sennister I would be interested in finding out which cables you have had success with running S-Video cables/PS2 cables as I am up for some replacements and have the bike apart as we speak. Would be better to pay $5 for an extension cable rather than $30.
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The extension cable that is used from the headset out on the Starcom to the headset is a traditional PS2 extension cable. If you were here in the US I could probably recommend a few places that sell them but I would imagine you could find them cheaper locally in your part of the world. A PS2 extension cable is identical to what Starcom uses for this cable though it can be harder to find them in black. They have a male PS2 connection on one end a female PS2 connection on the other. You can even find them in the coil or straight cable format. I run a straight cable from the Starcom that hangs out of the bike a bit between the seat and tank. Then I plug a coiled one into that. Over time from all the connecting and disconnecting the connectors wear out. PS2 connectors really are not designed for a lot of connection cycles so I would rather wear out cheap computer cables vs the expensive connection coming off the Starcom or the head set.

The S-Video cable is what connects to my Icom F-21 GMRS Radio and my Midland CB radio. To be honest I haven't messed with these cables. I don't use the radios enough to worry about it and have the official Starcom ones which are plenty long for my use. I would imagine that you could find a S-video extension cable if you needed one but the Starcom ones are plenty long. I don't know if you could convert a S-video cable as a replacement for the Starcom ones. The reason is that they are S-video on one end and headphone jack type connections on the other. I am sure you may be able to make that but there may be some mic isolation in the wires.

I am trying to remember but I think the PTT switch is also a S-video cable. There is a post here somewhere which shows which wires are shorted out for the PTT. Where this is nice is that you could in theory mount a momentary switch connected for a S-video cable rather than the official cable. I haven't looked at the cables that close recently.
 
ok due to the fact all 3 connectors work on the ordinary NOKIA 100 phone ie;- although fairly new not a smart phone/camera phone etc BUT only the one i think i got with the starcom works with the NOKIA 5800 i am wondering if it could be a software issue? so have updated nokia 5800 software and will go n try it shortly. i have no issues with speech on radios etc as i simply dont use them. i did also as an experiment bluetooth the 5800 to the starcom eliminating the hardwire plug in connector and the problem went away. but have never rated bluetooth seems very tinny sound, and i like to be able to listen to the music on the 5800
 
oh dear oh dear lol software update not a good idea have now lost all 3 connectors on 5800 FFS ARGHHHHHH oh well guess that confirms it's a software issue? was thinking it's time for a new phone anyway, although connected via bluetooth apart from sounding quite tinny it all works on the 5800
 
I guess I am lucky in a way. I have a bunch of hearing loss from my time in the military. Because of that I don't notice tinny sounding music, care that much about stereo vs mono as long as both speakers are driven and can save a bundle on my home theater because 2.1 sounds as good to me as 7.1.
 
sennister said:
I guess I am lucky in a way. I have a bunch of hearing loss from my time in the military. Because of that I don't notice tinny sounding music, care that much about stereo vs mono as long as both speakers are driven and can save a bundle on my home theater because 2.1 sounds as good to me as 7.1.
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lol one way to look at it i guess
 
One of the main problems is that Starcom cables are not wired the same on both ends. Meaning that the tip may be the middle portion on the other end. If your new phone has stereo output through the headphone jack and the old didn't, then this will have an effect also. Take a meter and figure out the polarity of the ends of the old cord and I bet it doesn't match what you are trying to use.

When I tried to do this without using the Starcom cable the mic moved from the end of the motorola plug I was trying to use to the middle conductor on the other end. I was able to buy a plug at Radio Shack and switch the wires and make a cable that worked after I knew what went where.

Sent from my RAZR M using Tapatalk 2
 
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SteveTecstar said:
Fair enough! Buy a cable without isolation, that will be much cheaper. Unfortunately you will experience ground loops resulting in interference, poor quality sound, and possibly cook the amplifier in the Satnav. The CAB-66 isn't just a cable, it contains 3 isolation transformers and a resistor circuit to match the Garmin mic impedance. Alternatively you could power your Garmin from its internal battery, rather than bike power it. In this instance isolation isn't required and you can then use a common old garden audio cable. Cheers.Steve
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Or i could just not use the 660 mic option as i have not been doing and managing quite well for the last couple of years???
 
Passive audio (ground loop) isolation circuits are fairly simple to construct. I'm working on a single board design that incorporates the two stereo channels and one mono channel I need for my set-up. Even though commercially available circuits are subject to copyright, there is nothing legally preventing someone from reverse-engineering one of them to create their own, similar circuit for personal use. Small audio transformers are available through most electronics stores as well as the big boys (Mouser, Allied, Newark, Digi-Key), including those tiny ETALs...

Ciao,
 
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