Controller Daisy Chain Question

[mike carlson]

Check out this thread here..

http://forums.lightorama.com/forum97/26528.html

I have one of these units running on my LOR network with no problems, turns a daisy chain network into a star run network.. I did however connect the ground wire as mentioned.. I have two network runs outside and two network runs inside.

here is the link to the actual device..

http://oldsite.rcstechnology.com/products/accessories/rs-485_hub.htm

Hope this helps..

Mike..

[Rich]

I have split my network twice without a problem. For my 2010 setup I use a usb 485b at the computer. Then run a 30ft phone line to the first controller. From the first controller I run two Cat5 cables out. One to controller 2 then 3. A second Cat5 cable to controller 8. At controller 8, I plug a phone cable into the second Cat5 socket(the phone socket is only for input signal). The phone cable then plugs into controller 9 phone socket. From controller 9, I plug in two more Cat5 cables. One goes to controllers 11 then 12. The second cable goes to controllers 10,7,6,4, then 5 in series. This keeps my data lines at there shortest, without having to backtrack. I haven't seen any glitches in the signal. However, It is a little tricky to get the phone cable to seat properly in a Cat5 socket. Once I was hooked up, I used the hardware utility to make sure it could find all the controllers. This may not be the official method for hooking them up, but has worked for me. I don't have any CCR's so I'm not sure what effect this splitting would have on them.

[TJ Hvasta]

Thanks Jeff, but I remember (I will have to find the thread) earlier in the year, someone had asked abt Y-ing @ the RJ11/RJ45 sockets because one socket was bad.. could it "RJ45 in" and "RJ11 out", and the answer from a "Tribal Elder" was no.. If you're able to actually make it work, then good to know.

[TJ Hvasta]

Steven wrote:

Surfing4Dough wrote:

To clarify what I think is the OP's question that hasn't been answered is can a controller be used as a Y-splitter in a sense.  Have a cat5 input to the controller, and then use both the cat5 output and the phone jack output to go to additional controllers, in effect creating a Y in the network.

The answer is: "No."

It may work somewhat, but it would no longer be a proper RS485 network, and could have spurious results depending on temperature and other factors.  The recommendation is to wire the network in a straight line as specified.

This is what I remembered from last years post asking if RJ11 and RJ45's can be use simultainiously..

[javerill]

Last year I had some controllers that the second cat5 jack didn't work. I took the cat5 caple and split it after my first box and ran 4 boxes off it and had no problems!

I have NEVER been able to get the phone jacks to work.

[eurbani]

I will have two controllers inside for 2012.

I think that I will try this split with the phone line. Otherwise, the best straight line would be computer, inside 1, outside boxes, inside #2.

I'm glad to see that someone has done it successfully.

[Darrell]

Continuing on the next step of this thread - at what point in splitting networks is it recommended to split the logical network configuration in the sequence editor to match the physical network split? I had 8 controllers this year and will be going to 12 controllers next year. I ran all 8 as a single daisy chain and did not have any issues. However, I'm wondering at what point I'll start to see a performance issue. The LOR help just says that -

"One main use of multiple networks is for displays with very large numbers of controllers;"

but it does give any practical number of controllers when multiple networks (logical and physical) would be recommended.

[Steven]

Darrell wrote:

but it does [not] give any practical number of controllers when multiple networks (logical and physical) would be recommended.

Because it also depends on your sequences, i.e. how many events are sent per second. For instance, if you use the CCR macros, your sequences will be more efficient, and you could get by with fewer networks, but if you program each of the 50 pixels in your CCR separately, then you'll need multiple networks sooner.

Someone (ItsMeBobO?) should write a utility to analyze a sequence and report how efficient it is, or how much of the network(s) it will use.

I switched to 2 networks this year for another reason: I have a ELL link to the 2 houses on the north side of the street, and it was picking up some interference and turning channels on the south side of the street at random times during the day. I put the ELL on a separate network to prevent this. This will also allow me to run the south network (3 houses, 12 controllers) at the "Short Range (Faster)" speed if required.

[TJ Hvasta]

I just finished the season with 12 daisy-chained, running only incans with no problems.