Guest kenton miles Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 i have made up all my cat 5 cables and tested them all individually with a cheap and nasty ebay rj45 tester and all are good, when i set up my display and plug them all in is is safe to use the tester again to check connectoin or will it do any damage to the control board.last year only had a couple of controllers and was easy to check but now have 12 spead out all over so not as easy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dstevens Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 If all of your controllers are set up and connected, I would say the easiest way to check your connections is to use the hardware utility. The HWU will quickly tell you if it is seeing all of your controllers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest wbottomley Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 If all of your controllers are set up and connected, I would say the easiest way to check your connections is to use the hardware utility. The HWU will quickly tell you if it is seeing all of your controllers.Not only the easiest, but the smartest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max-Paul Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 Ok, lets see if I understand the question right. You bought a cheap nasty Cat 5 cable tester off of ebay. All of your cables tested good with this cheap nasty tester. Now that you have the cables plugged into your controllers. You want to know if you can use your nasty cheap tester again and will this effect your controllers. Now realizing that I have no idea how your cheap nasty tester works. What kind of voltages that are present at the tester. And to what terminals will be either negative or positive. And not knowing which of the 8 terminals is going to what electronic device on the control board. And you want us to advice you weather this is safe or not to do?So, if I tell you what I think of this question, I might be banned. So, sure aught to work real fine and confirm everything is working as it should. I know, how about firing up the Hardware Utility program and refresh the list and see if all of your controllers show up. Ya, that would be to hard to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest kenton miles Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 Thanks to wbottomley and dstevens for your replies, have not used the hardware utility before so will have to have a play (using dc boards and just select switch to set channel) as for max-paul cant say thanks as i found you answer a bit insulting.As i am still a new kid on the block, i thought the wisdom of more experienced might be wise, but you patronising replay makes me wonder, a better reply might have been to ask for more information, even you were new to this once Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max-Paul Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 Actually some of this falls back to common sense. YOUR description of your cheap and nasty tester tells all of nothing of its operation. Let me ask you this, and it is especially true of the D.C. controllers. Would you hook a 110VAC cord to this card? Not supplying anything about this cheap tester, no info at all. And then come in here and ask, can you do this. Sorry my friend, but we can not read minds nor can we look into a crystal ball and see your work bench with the controller and tester.See we get a lot of newbs at this time of year, A LOT. And they ask some of the most off of the wall questions. Thinking outside of the box does not include using untested testers to do things that they where not meant to be used for. None of the old timers are going to use a cable tester for anything other than testing cables. This includes putting them on a cable that is connected to several controllers to test the continuity of the whole string. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orville Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 I'm no newb, but I have to wonder, how would you test a CAT5 cable CONNECTED to the Cat5 JACKS inside the controller???I can test Cat5 or phone cables end to end to make sure they are good with my Cat5/Phone Cable tester, but for the life of me, I can not see how I would be able to connect the cat5 cables and the tester at the same time to a controller like that.Nor would I want too, mainly because I'd be afraid of damaging the controller and/or any other controllers that are connected to the controller being checked, and/or damaging the Cat5/Phone Cable tester unit.Hardware Utility is the only way I have ever checked and tested that all controllers were found and connected! Or if I goofed somewhere and assigned a controller the same ID number as an existing one.I can't believe even a Newb would not have used the Hardware Utility {HWU} before doing anything else!Once I got my controllers, that was the first software I used to verify controller ID and connections, as well as plug in some lights and test to be sure everything was working correctly and I hadn't made any errors or had any bad cables somewhere.Yes, we were all newbs once and as such, we've made some mistakes ourselves when we started, but you definitely need to have a lot of common sense in this particular hobby. Especially since it does deal with electricity and other factors that could get you severely injured or even killed.Although some of those late night activities on getting things ready, some of us tend to lose a bit of common sense at times, I know I've done it, so have others, and even though we may not be newbs, we all have asked a question that has gotten answers like Max-Paul stated from the "seasoned pro's". Sometimes we don't like to hear how they put it, but once you learn how a lot of these folks are, you'll understand it a bit better.Being a newb this will take some time.Max-Paul is a wealth of great info, as are many others here on the forums. Believe me, Max-Pauls original 1st reply to you was very mild compared to what some others may have stated. I've been there, done it, learned and now just ,moving along with the flow of things. So I know you didn't like his response, but I can understand why he stated in the way he did.Welcome to the hobby, but be safe and enjoy it. And by all means ask questions, but this time of year everyone is really busy with trying to get their displays up and running, those of us that do both Halloween and Christmas even more so, since we have to take down Halloween, then start putting up our Christmas display immediately afterward. And a lot of these folks that do large Christmas displays started their set up starting back in July to get things going.So just try to take any harsh comments with a grain of salt this time of year, as everyone is extremely busy and may respond in a manner which is out of character for them with the stress of getting everything up and operational.Again, Welcome to hobby. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmturner54 Posted October 7, 2012 Share Posted October 7, 2012 `Hardware utility plain and simple. And why would you want to talk harsh anyway That's all I am going to say. Again, HWU is the best choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Fischer Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 How about this for an alternative? You've tested your cables. Assume they work. Then (eventually) run a test show. If there are problems, THEN you can worry about diagnosing them. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edvas69 Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 Wouldnt the easiest method would to be just turn it all on and if you get a steady signal light on your controllers then you are good to go. Im not sure why you need to check the network cables now they are installed after you have already confirmed they were good.Only then if you cant get a steady light on then i would start looking and then i would only look as far as the controller that doesnt have the steady light. If it has a steady light then the controller is seeing a valid signal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evandewindt Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 Hey kenton try to ignore the people that rip newbies a new one. I agree it does suck when people are new and instead of searching the forums for an answer first they just post, but i don't get all worked up over it (not saying u did this). We were all new at one point and all needed questions answered. The people who are afraid to make mistakes and ask questions excel at a much slower pace and end up suffering from it in the long run. If people are too busy this time of year to answer questions then why are they on the internet killing time! This is just the way i see it...people need to chill out and be nicer to one another....maybe i see it this way because im fresh and only 25 and not old/hardened/rotten/wrinkly/shriveled/grumpy or what some would call wise.....ha! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digdeepfundraising Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 Hey kenton try to ignore the people that rip newbies a new one. I agree it does suck when people are new and instead of searching the forums for an answer first they just post, but i don't get all worked up over it (not saying u did this). We were all new at one point and all needed questions answered. The people who are afraid to make mistakes and ask questions excel at a much slower pace and end up suffering from it in the long run. If people are too busy this time of year to answer questions then why are they on the internet killing time! This is just the way i see it...people need to chill out and be nicer to one another....maybe i see it this way because im fresh and only 25 and not old/hardened/rotten/wrinkly/shriveled/grumpy or what some would call wise.....ha!+1+2+3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Don Gillespie Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 Hey kenton try to ignore the people that rip newbies a new one. I agree it does suck when people are new and instead of searching the forums for an answer first they just post, but i don't get all worked up over it (not saying u did this). We were all new at one point and all needed questions answered. The people who are afraid to make mistakes and ask questions excel at a much slower pace and end up suffering from it in the long run. If people are too busy this time of year to answer questions then why are they on the internet killing time! This is just the way i see it...people need to chill out and be nicer to one another....maybe i see it this way because im fresh and only 25 and not old/hardened/rotten/wrinkly/shriveled/grumpy or what some would call wise.....ha!if you are going to make a statement like this at least have the cahunas to mention the people that have ripped him a new one. after rereading every post I haven't seen the thread that rips hiom a new one, am I missing something here, or are you reading more into this than what was posted Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToddH Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 Love Max Pauls responses to these types of posts!! Love it even more when someone is offended by the simple fact he is asking posters to think about what they post before posting and ask themselves... does this make me sound like an idiot or a newb? There is a thin line of difference here, but its there... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edvas69 Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 There are people of all experiences that get involved in this hobby. What may be percieved as a very stupid question by one may be a very important question for the person asking it, or else they wouldnt ask it. I do agree that people do have to take some initiative to find the info themselves but at the same time i also realize that for anyone new, the forums can be a struggle to find what they are looking for. Fot a lot of the old dogs finding these answers is a fairly easy task because they are familiar with the forum and where to find the info. I do sometimes find myself cringing with some of the questions i do see, but then if I asked a question about fashion on a fashion forum im sure ill get those odd strange looks because I just dont get it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Fischer Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 There are people of all experiences that get involved in this hobby. What may be percieved as a very stupid question by one may be a very important question for the person asking it, or else they wouldnt ask it. I do agree that people do have to take some initiative to find the info themselves but at the same time i also realize that for anyone new, the forums can be a struggle to find what they are looking for. Fot a lot of the old dogs finding these answers is a fairly easy task because they are familiar with the forum and where to find the info. I do sometimes find myself cringing with some of the questions i do see, but then if I asked a question about fashion on a fashion forum im sure ill get those odd strange looks because I just dont get it The issue at hand is not so much "not searching" (although that's annoying), but "not providing enough information". For example, in this case, we don't know what kind of a tester the original poster is using, and we certainly don't know how he was hoping to test the cables while they were plugged into a controller (I've never seen a tester of any price range that would allow for that). I *still* don't know what the original question was all about, but it seems he's satisfied with the "use the hardware utility" answer. Frankly, if the lights are solid in all the while the LOR control panel is up, he's good to go 99.9% of the time. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edvas69 Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 The issue at hand is not so much "not searching" (although that's annoying), but "not providing enough information". For example, in this case, we don't know what kind of a tester the original poster is using, and we certainly don't know how he was hoping to test the cables while they were plugged into a controller (I've never seen a tester of any price range that would allow for that).I *still* don't know what the original question was all about, but it seems he's satisfied with the "use the hardware utility" answer. Frankly, if the lights are solid in all the while the LOR control panel is up, he's good to go 99.9% of the time.i just see it as a person who doesnt understand what questions to ask. The info he provided was enough to say why do you need to do this regardless of what he was using, the rest i wasnt concerned about because to me it was an obvious post by someone who didnt understand what they were doing or asking.But i do agree with you 100% when you see very generic post about how do i sequence or issues where the info is very scant and generic and then there are some people who refuse to do any thinking or reading for themselves and expect everyone else to just design and engineer their display. We have all seen it many times before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shfr26 Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 Did you try any of the above, disregard the smart a@@ comments, and did it help or not?? If not, well if Wbottlemy and MaxPaul and Tim ca'nt answer I think you need to reread the above post or explain the problem a little better, and Welcome above! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Surfing4Dough Posted October 9, 2012 Share Posted October 9, 2012 ... a cheap and nasty ebay rj45 tester...Is that a person or an object? Regardless, I wouldn't let either touch my display. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now