Connecting Controllers Together

[Guest guest]

Since there is only one phone jack on each LOR board, can the boards be connected by alternating Cat 5e cable and phone line between each board, as long as I use Cat 5e from the computer to the first board? I would run Cat 5e from the computer, then phone line to the next board, Cat 5e to the next board, then Cat 5 e, and so on.

Also, could I run the Cat 5e to a board somewhere in the middle of the chain and then go in two different directions from that board using phone cord in the one jack and Cat 5e in the other jack?

I have a lot of phone cords setting around and thought I could use them where possible versus going out and buying all new Cat 5e cables.

[Guest guest]

circus4u wrote:

Since there is only one phone jack on each LOR board, can the boards be connected by alternating Cat 5e cable and phone line between each board, as long as I use Cat 5e from the computer to the first board? I would run Cat 5e from the computer, then phone line to the next board, Cat 5e to the next board, then Cat 5 e, and so on.

Also, could I run the Cat 5e to a board somewhere in the middle of the chain and then go in two different directions from that board using phone cord in the one jack and Cat 5e in the other jack?

I have a lot of phone cords setting around and thought I could use them where possible versus going out and buying all new Cat 5e cables.

As you noted, there is only one outbound port on the board. You can use a phone cord coming from that port.

The inbound port is where you have to connect the cable to the correct port. (Phone to RJ-11, CAT5 to RJ-45)

[Guest guest]

The left and middle connectors are inputs. Left for phone, middle for CAT5. The right connector is an output connector and will take either a phone or CAT5 cable. Boxes must all be daisy chained. There is no way to split to two boxes from one.

[Guest guest]

I don't know if my setup is different or not, but I am able to run 3 1602W boxes all on phone cable.

Mark

[Guest guest]

Mark,

How do you do that with only one phone jack on the board?

[Guest guest]

I only had a 25 foot cat5 cable and needed a longer one. I tried this just on a chance. I just plugged the first phone cord into the adapter on the computer, then I plugged the other end of the cord into the far left plug on board one, I then plugged another cord out from the far right plug into the far left plug on unit 2, and repeated it with unit three. I have tested it with lights and it works fine. The first two phone cords are 50 feet long and the last one is 25 feet long. The first 2 units are blue boards and the last unit is a green board.

[Guest guest]

Thanks, Mark. I am getting ready to put my controllers out tomorrow, so I am going to try to daisy chain my controllers togther like that too.

[Guest guest]

If I am not mistaken, if you use phone cord instead of cat 5e doesn't it lessen teh distance between boards?

[Guest guest]

Should work fine, in the current LOR configuration the only difference between using cat5 over phone cables is the distance from the computer to the first controller. The fact that the phone connector is smaller does not matter, the conductors that LOR uses will line up properly in the RJ45 jack. Just don't try inserting the Cat5 cable into the phone connection, that gets really ugly :]