Phantom Power Safety

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Travis Hodgkinson

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Phantom Power Safety

PostWed May 18, 2022 4:23 pm

Is it safe to leave a phantom powered mic like the RODE NTG3 connected to your camera if the mic toggle switch is permanently set to +48V. I'm assuming it won't cause any harm to the camera or mic. It's just that you shouldn't connect or disconnect the mic when using +48V right? So If I'm R&G it, I just power up the camera and nothing is gonna go haywire on me is it?

When using a microphone that requires phantom power, turn off the camera and set the respective INPUT switch to MIC. After connecting a +48V compatible microphone, switch the INPUT switch to MIC+48V.

Do not connect or disconnect microphones and other audio devices from any INPUT terminal when the corresponding INPUT (audio source selection) switch is set to the MIC+48V position. This may damage the camera and/or device.
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Brad Hurley

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Re: Phantom Power Safety

PostWed May 18, 2022 4:40 pm

That shouldn't be a problem. I asked Sound Devices and Sonosax this same question several years ago about recorders/preamps I have from them and they said it's fine. For example, on my Sound Devices MixPre 6, I have my channels set to phantom all the time (unless I'm using ribbon mics or other dynamic mics). I plug in the mics before turning on the recorder, and unplug them after the recorder is turned off. But I could just as easily leave them connected all the time. Sound Devices confirmed that this is perfectly safe; Sonosax did the same (I asked with respect to my M2D2 preamp).

The message I got from Sound Devices support went even further: "It's actually OK to just plug-in a phantom-powered mic to a jack with phantom power already enabled...but this method could damage a sensitive microphone. Your process is perfect - leave phantom power enabled and...plug-in mics, power-up MixPre, power-off MixPre, disconnect mics. No problem."
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wemrick1

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Re: Phantom Power Safety

PostWed May 18, 2022 4:43 pm

What they are saying is not to connect or disconnect a microphone while the 48v phantom power is on from inside your camera and the camera is on. Turn off the camera, to connect or disconnect the microphone.
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Travis Hodgkinson

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Re: Phantom Power Safety

PostWed May 18, 2022 5:22 pm

Thanks gents, appreciate your time.
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dondidnod

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Re: Phantom Power Safety

PostThu May 19, 2022 2:28 am

The college I go to has a recording studio with a $67,000 48 channel Trident mixer, expensive studio and some old school simple ribbon mics (like CNNs Larry King used) that are easily damaged by not following phantom power protocols. The mixer stayed on, but before we connected any mic, the tenured professor required that both the input and the output slider gain on the mixing board be set to zero, then we turned on phantom power. This was to avoid a potentially damaging "pop" being sent to the mic from the pre-amp as it engages. These are strong pre-amps with lots of gain. The reverse protocol was used when removing the mic from the mixer.

I always connect a mic, power the camera on, turn down the gain, then I switch XLR Phantom Power on and I turn down the gain and switch the XLR Phantom Power off before turning the camera off. This avoids a power spike being sent to the mic.

The Operation manual says:

"NOTE It is standard practice to plug in your XLR cable before switching phantom power on. It is also important to switch phantom power to ‘off’ when you no longer have a phantom powered microphone connected. Connecting equipment that doesn’t require phantom power when still in phantom power mode can damage your equipment, as the camera outputs a charge when in this mode. Phantom power can also take quite a while to discharge after switching it off.
Please be aware that you should wait a few minutes when switching off phantom power before plugging in any other microphones or XLR audio equipment."

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