Combined cabling?

[Ed Slonka Jr]

Is it possible to use the same cable to go to your LOR controllers and DMX devices?

Here is what I mean....

Use your LOR dongle for the LOR signal and use a DMX
dongle for the DMX signal. Now downstream of both dongles combine the cables into
one cable instead of running two. Since DMX uses pins 1 & 2 and LOR uses 4 & 5 would
this not be possible? (that is if you are not injecting power into the Cat 5 for your DMX stuff)

The only questions I have:

Are the LOR controllers capable of passing the DMX signal thru as it does it's own signal?

If this is not possible then why?



Thanks, Ed

[-klb-]

LOR also uses 3&6. DMX also requires a ground connection for reliable signaling.

Most newer controllers do pass 1-2 and 7-8 through, but not all.

[Jack Stevens]

You can do this with some major caveats.

The main ones are what DMX controllers you use.

LOR standard for an RJ45 is pin 3 is +9 volts. Pin 4 is date +, pin 5 is data -, and pin 6 is ground. The voltage is there to run devices such as ELL's.

Renard standard for RJ45 is pin 4 is data -, pin 5 is data +, all else is grounded. You can run Renard boards with DMX firmware, but the pins uses are the same as LOR, with polarity opposite, and shorting out the +9 volts on pin 3 to ground.

"standard" DMX RJ45 pin out is pin 1 is data +, pin 2 is data -, pin 7 is ground.

DLA SSR4 with DMX option is pin 1 is data +, pin 2 is data -, pins 3-8 are triac control.

There may be other boards out there, these are just the ones I'm familiar with.

RS485 signaling levels are such that you can put 4 sets of signals on a standard cat 5. Since the RJ45 termination at each end doesn't end up with a "standard" you may or may not be able to adapt around it. I would consider doing it, with the possibility of using RJ45 keystone jacks at some controllers removing/bypassing all but what is needed for that controller.

I believe the LOR boards do a one-for-one input-output connection on all pins, so you can run the DMX through pins 1 and 2 with no problem; the board will only monitor pins 4 and 5.

I could combine the signals onto a single cable coming out of the dongles, run to a couple of LOR controllers, then to a DMX16DC board (RPM's design) with no problems, come out of that board, go to a DLA SSR4 by first going into a keystone jack that would jumper all but pins 1 and 2 over to another keystone jack, and run pins 1 and 2 to the SSR4, back out into the second keystone jack. From there, I could then go to my Renard Ren24SS boards, into an RJ45 keystone jack which would run pins 1 and to to pins 5 and 4 to the Ren24SS and the rest over to an output keystone jack, which would also take the output from the Ren24SS and inject the regenerated DMX back onto the line. Then on to more LOR controllers........

As I said, it's possible with known caveats.

[Ed Slonka Jr]

Thanks Jack....Great info!

Ed