"The use of modular cards and racks makes expanding a system (stereo to surround?) really easy."

"The Ethernet comms on the Brain rack are for the future: Watch this space!"

Crookwood Products: igloo Hardware

This page details the hardware involved in an igloo. To find more details on the igloo, check out:

igloo Navigation

Overview. A thorough overview of the igloo concept.
Controllers. About the user control panels.
Software. An insight into the integration power of the system.
Specifying. How to specify your ideal .
Clients. Who's bought igloo's and what did they specify.

Hardware Overview

The igloo has 4 main bits of hardware plus the controllers:

The Brain Rack - The central raw Power Supply and processor rack.
The Worker Racks - A number of identical slave racks that house the processing cards.
The Processing Cards - A number of processing cards, of different types (relay routers, speaker controllers digital routers etc).
Wiring - Internal rack wiring and specified Client side wiring to get all of the signals in and out of the Worker racks, and distribute them to the right processing cards.

The Brain Rack

The Brain is the heart of the system. It is a 1U rack which houses the raw power supply for the system and the main system processor.

Each processing card has it's own power regulators on the card, rather than relying on a central set of regulators. This allows us to add processing cards to a system without worrying about power consumption or heat dissipation. The Brain rack houses a massive transformer that powers these cards. Because there is no regulation however, the rack does not get hot.

The Brain has enough power to drive 4 Worker racks, or 18 processing cards (4 per rack plus 2 extra slots in the Brain), and has power/data connectors on it's rear panel to connect to these racks. For larger systems, more than one Brain rack and associated worker racks can be connected together.

Asides from the power supply, the Brain contains the main system processor. This is a relatively powerful processor which runs all the software to control the processing cards and the control panels. It has control interfaces for:

Each Worker rack, and through it each processor card.
The Control Panels via a serial link.
An RS 485 port for external communication.
A MIDI in and out port for external communication.
An Ethernet port for software updates and computer control.
A GPIO port for external communication.

In addition, the Brain rack has 2 spare slots for processing cards, useful for either small systems or overflow in big systems. Associated with these slots are also 2 converter slots for our AD or DA cards.

The Worker Rack

The Worker holds the processing cards. It again is a 1U rack which houses up to 4 processor cards, and 4 associated converter cards (AD or DA, or both)

Each Worker rack is connected to the Brain rack to get it's raw power and data communications. This lead is nominally 0.5m (18") long, but can be up to 4M (13ft) long, allowing you to distribute the racks around a room, placing them where they are needed to minimise cable runs.

Up to 4 Worker racks can be used per igloo system.

Each Worker rack has 12 IO connectors on it's rear, allowing for a maximum of 96 inputs or outputs per rack.

The Processing Cards

All the processing for an igloo is performed by various processing cards. Currently there are 11 different types available to do nearly any job a requires.

In addition, whilst the rack provides basic smoothed DC power, each card has onboard local power supply regulation, increasing the reliability of the PSU system, increasing sound quality due to excellent regulation, and allowing the rack to be convection cooled, due to the better heat dissipation performance.

Each card has a local processor which decodes commands sent to it from the Brain rack, via the control panels and acts according. For instance on our relay switching cards, the processor guarantees a break before make action for routing, by turning all relays off, waiting for the maximum relay bounce time and then turning the relays on for the new routing. This sort of intelligence gives excellent performance and safety, especially when the output may be attached to a cutting lathe (recording feedback can destroy a $2000 cutting head in milliseconds)!

There are two types of cards: regular and converter. Each type has identical dimensions and IO connectors and can be placed in any rack slot intended for that card. This makes it very easy to test, repair or upgrade systems, as being card based, a replacement card can just be slotted in. Links on the cards, the client software and the client wiring determine the exact card function.

There are currently 11 different cards available as follows:

Relay based analogue routers (2). A 16w and 32w relay card is available, configurable as selectors, distributors or crosspoints. Balanced, gas sealed bi-furcated relays are used for the best audio performance.
Digital Audio routers (1). An 8 in 32 bus out card, that can be ganged to make up to a 32x32 digital router. It accepts AES, SPDIF and SDIF3 (DSD). Transformer IO provides excellent isolation, and hard logic allows speeds up to 192K PCM audio.
MDAC analogue monitor/ trim cards (2). A full monitor and a trim MDAC card are available to cope with all monitoring and trimming tasks. Trim can be set in 1/3rd dB steps, and the monitor card has full mono and phase reverse options. Multiple cards can be ganged together for surround applications.
Analogue buffer cards (1). A 16 channel buffer card is available to buffer sources and destinations to/from the . The card copes with balancing and unbalancing machines, and driving long lines. Usually we don't buffer machines, but if required, this card will be used.
MS processor (1). An analogue MS encoder and decoder card is available for MS processing.
Digital converters (2). An ADC and DAC card are available for converting signals. Both cards use SRC's as digital PLL's for accurate sound conversion.
Mic Pre (1). A mic pre card (identical to that used in the Paintpot) is available for s that require a quality mic pre.
Metering card (1). An 8 channel analogue meter card is available that can drive our 40 segment bargraph meters with VU or PPM characteristics.

The Wiring

The wiring determines the function of the cards. A relay card can be a selector card, or a crosspoint, or a distributor card. The internal and external (client) wiring and link configuration, determines the function of that card.

Some cards need hardware (link) configuring, others can be configured by client software.

The internal wiring again is modular and can be changed by the client if required if their needs change. At the end of the process, an external wiring schedule is produced for the client ot wire their studio to accept their igloo.

So what do I do next?

Look around the igloo site. The links at the top of the page will take you around. When you've had a look and think you're ready to move forwards, call us, and we'll speak further. Your life will never be the same again!