Length of Network

[Mr. P]

1 minute ago, dibblejr said:

Being only 1 data line how's that work, I read and followed all last year when you was referring to it but never understood. Is it soldered on the ground and data cable. Right now I use 3M5200 to seal my ends to protect from shorts.

JR

Data pair are pins 4 & 5 in the cat 5. Your very last controller in a network will only have one cat5 cable going in so you make a terminator and plug that into the second rj45 port.

[dibblejr]

12 minutes ago, Mr. P said:

Data pair are pins 4 & 5 in the cat 5. Your very last controller in a network will only have one cat5 cable going in so you make a terminator and plug that into the second rj45 port.

Dang, you made that sound simple and will be implemented this year. I was thinking at the end of the strings/ strips since they were in my mind the end of the run.

Thank you 

JR

[k6ccc]

For end of the network terminators, I build up RJ-45 connectors that have an RJ-45 connector with a 120 ohm 1/8 watt resistor between pins 4 & 5, and  a second 120 ohm 1/8 watt resistor between pins 1 & 2.  The reason for the resistor on pins 1 & 2 is that one of these days I may end up doing something with DMX equipment and DMX uses pins 1 & 2 for the data.  The termination plug plugs into the unused connector on the last controller.  For the adapter end of the network, I have a RJ-45 jack (commonly called a biscuit) at the end of the cable going out into the yard.  I terminate the the data pair in the jack and then have a short patch cable to the USB adapter.

 

[TheDucks]

I noticed the new (v2) Pixie4's have a Jumper assigned as Termination. That makes it simple, JUST jumper the last unit on the line. 

 

[dibblejr]

2 minutes ago, TheDucks said:

I noticed the new (v2) Pixie4's have a Jumper assigned as Termination. That makes it simple, JUST jumper the last unit on the line. 

 

That may solve a problem for a few of my runs this year. Outline. I wonder if the new pixie8 with jumpers have it as well. Now gonna have to look at the pcb specs.

Thanks

JR

[TheDucks]

8 hours ago, dibblejr said:

That may solve a problem for a few of my runs this year. Outline. I wonder if the new pixie8 with jumpers have it as well. Now gonna have to look at the pcb specs.

Thanks

JR

All 2nd Gen Pixies have JP4 according to the latest manual (LOR documentation download)

Edited February 11, 2018 by TheDucks

[nmonkman]

k6ccc, I don't have a picture but I will give you the details on my cross talk issue. For quite a few years I had the controllers mounted to a piece of plywood on my garage wall, so they were spaced far apart and power rain behind the plywood and data across the front face. Data came in from the top and power from the bottom. Then I started running out of room so I made 3 boxes that were 4' long, 2' high and 2' wide. Each one held 6 controllers so there was still a lot of space.  Here is a link to my FB page
https://www.facebook.com/neil.monkman64/videos/928585190557440/

Then I went and bought 2 sheds that were 6' tall, about 3' wide and 2' deep and mounted the controllers side by side on the back and also put 3 on each side so 1 cabinet has 14 controllers in it and the other has only 9. Here is a link showing the cabinets. https://www.facebook.com/neil.monkman64/videos/1342466525835969/

You can see how close everything is and even shielding the CAT6 (already shielded) with flex conduit did not stop the cross talking. Currently I have over 5 miles of extension cord. So putting them in the yard I can cut the amount of needed extension cord by at least half, leaving me plenty of cord for future controllers. It will also make set up faster. It takes me 3-4 days just to run cords right now.

The sheds will not go to waste though. I am going to put them on the side of the house with shelves and free up space in the garage.

 

[k6ccc]

Your videos are completely unwatchable - sort of looked like a view through Geordi La Forge's visor in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

You say you have crosstalk, but don't define what you mean by that - it can mean several different things.

As for getting the controllers out in the yard, I have never been a fan of miles of wire from the having the controllers in a central location.  Just for my year round landscape lighting, I have controllers in five locations.  For Christmas, the pixel tree has it's controller is in a box on the back of the star:

and the arches have one controller just behind each pair of arches:

 

 

[TheDucks]

Wood (any) box needs ventilation to get rid of moisture condensed from the air.  All it takes is colder on one side for this to happen. Colder outside is really bad.

 

For what you spent on wood and outlets, the LOR case and pigtails seem to be a easy outdoor solution.

I happen to use CG1500's for my DC stuff, with my 2 (WR)  PSU's mounted on the outside back of the case. that leaves room for 2  CMB24D or Pixies.

(I pole mount the case, with the pole between the mounted PSU's.  Nothing stopping this from being a 2+ high stack, except weight

[nmonkman]

Well. I didn't post the videos hoping for an academy award. They were just there to show how tight the controllers were in the cabinet and how they were before.

I didn't define the crosstalk issue, because I have already established that I have it. For the sake of clarity, I had channels coming on, on channels that were not part of the sequence playing. This was resolved in separate correspondence to LOR. Besides, this post has nothing to do with crosstalk, I was just trying to confirm "length of network" limits.

Pixel tree and arches look nice.

The Ducks: I agree on the ventilation. If you can struggle through the videos you will see in the wood boxes, I mounted a bathroom exhaust fan in each. Look on the right side of the box at the bottom. On the cabinets/sheds I cored 12 each 2" holes for the cords to run into on each side. Only used 8 so I had cross ventilation (which should not be confused with cross talk).

[TheDucks]

3 hours ago, nmonkman said:

The Ducks: I agree on the ventilation. If you can struggle through the videos you will see in the wood boxes, I mounted a bathroom exhaust fan in each. Look on the right side of the box at the bottom. On the cabinets/sheds I cored 12 each 2" holes for the cords to run into on each side. Only used 8 so I had cross ventilation (which should not be confused with cross talk).

You are correct. I stopped viewing shortly after the wet terminal part.  Bathroom fans seem overkill. I was thinking a 4" muffin fan, commonly used in larger computer cases.