johnsonfool Posted November 27, 2007 Share Posted November 27, 2007 Okay here is the problem. We have seven 16 channel boxes and we have run 2 conductor telephone cable to the first four boxes and 6 conductor telephone cable to the last three boxes. Should all these connections come into the first port on the left of the board and then come out of the last port on the right of the board? When I open the hardware utility it won't find the boxes but when I run a sequence in the sequence editor everything works fine but when I start a show after a little bit it hangs up and stops working. The music will sometimes continue to play but the lights stop working. We have checked the power settings of the computer and nothing is shutting down the hard drive or hybernating or anything else. We have also killed other software running in the background. Any ideas from anybody what could be wrong. I am wondering if it's the way we have the boxes connected. Should we be using the 6 conductor telephone cable everywhere. We come out of the computer with 2 conductor and connect the first four boxes in a large tree with the 2 conductor and then go to the roof with the 6 conductor and connect the last three boxes on the roof together. Would this be causing the issue and why would the hardware utility not be able to find the boxes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fire_paramedic Posted November 27, 2007 Share Posted November 27, 2007 Since you are using phone cable i know you have to have the incoming cable go in the firstjack (phone jack) then it must go out to the next controller from the cat 5 port. and so on down the line. as for the number of wires that i do not know most phone cables are two wire and maybe four. I know LOR sells the 4 conductor so i will go out on a limb and say it must be 4. i use cat 5 cable. have not tried phone. hope this helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsonfool Posted November 27, 2007 Author Share Posted November 27, 2007 What has got me confused is that this is actually my dad's display and with my display I come in the first port with phone cable and then out the third port to the next box and never had a problem. The phone cable he bought to run to the boxes on the roof says it's 6 conductor phone cable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Fischer Posted November 27, 2007 Share Posted November 27, 2007 When you say "two conductor phone cable" do you really mean "two pair"? LOR uses two pairs -- one for data, one for power. The 6-conductor cable is fine, the extra pair will just be ignored.If you have a 1st gen board like some of mine, there are only 2 ports on the board, and you have to use jumpers to select between Cat 5 (straight through) and phone (crossover) cables.-Tim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsonfool Posted November 27, 2007 Author Share Posted November 27, 2007 No these are newer boards with three ports on each and yes I mean two pair sorry for the confusion! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LightORamaDan Posted December 1, 2007 Share Posted December 1, 2007 The most important part to know about the cable is if it is straight thru or if it is cross over... Normal CAT5 is straight thru. Normal telephone cable is crossover from one end to the other.If it is crossover then it has to go in the small connector when it comes into a box. If it is straight thru then it needs to go into one of the large connectors when it goes into the box. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Posted December 4, 2007 Share Posted December 4, 2007 Got a question: Let's say you made a mistake and plugged a crossover (phone) cable into the wrong socket. Tracing the wiring on the board shows that this will result in the 9-volt regulators on the two units attempting to put power into the cable in opposite directions. I would think this would cause a high current through the phone cable.The question is, what would happen? Would this cause one or both of the 9-volt regulators to fail? Or would they pass enough current to cause the phone cable to get warm? Would the tiny conductors in the phone cable fail? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Fischer Posted December 4, 2007 Share Posted December 4, 2007 Steven wrote: Got a question: Let's say you made a mistake and plugged a crossover (phone) cable into the wrong socket. Tracing the wiring on the board shows that this will result in the 9-volt regulators on the two units attempting to put power into the cable in opposite directions. I would think this would cause a high current through the phone cable.The question is, what would happen? Would this cause one or both of the 9-volt regulators to fail? Or would they pass enough current to cause the phone cable to get warm? Would the tiny conductors in the phone cable fail?I've done this before for a very short period (actually my old boards have jumpers that you need to set between crossover and normal...) It's always made me nervous for the reasons you've stated, but I've never destroyed anything and never got a clear answer on whether this is a Really Bad Thing or something that's been designed around... As you've probably noticed, the LED's on both units will go out if that happens, until the problem is corrected...-Tim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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