Network cabling

[slipperyclam]

Alright this is my first year doing this and let me say I did not budget my time very good but non the less I have my 6 sequences all my lights up and wires run but when I went to test things I the Hardware tester would not find any controllers. What I am wondering is I put up an Ethernet port on the outside of my house and ran a pigtail into the basement were my computer will be I used standard Ethernet ports and plugs and wired it to type A Ethernet wiring is this correct? or do I need to do something different?

[Don]

Alright this is my first year doing this and let me say I did not budget my time very good but non the less I have my 6 sequences all my lights up and wires run but when I went to test things I the Hardware tester would not find any controllers. What I am wondering is I put up an Ethernet port on the outside of my house and ran a pigtail into the basement were my computer will be I used standard Ethernet ports and plugs and wired it to type A Ethernet wiring is this correct? or do I need to do something different?

 

This isn't TCP/IP. You need to use one of the USB adapters from Light-O-Rama.

[slipperyclam]

forgot to mention I do have the Adapter also

[Max-Paul]

Ok, so lets just verify that the following.

 

From the USB port you go to the adapter to the Cat 5 cable to this port that you have put outside. There is no network switch or hub in the line between the adapter and the controllers, right?
What is the little light on the controller board doing?

[slipperyclam]

Max you are correct usb adaptor to cat 5 to port to patch cord to controller. Little Light is blinking green

[m1ke05]

I believe in order for it to work your port needs to be wired in this order 

White Orange
Orange

White Green

Blue
White Blue
Green
White Brown
Brown

If you have something crossed, or one of the wires not punched down good enough you will not be able to see the controller. Also check for cuts in the  line. 

[m1ke05]

This is exactly why I invested in and Ideal VDV MultiMedia tester. Saves me hours of looking around at CAT5 connections

[txboy]

I think the port you installed should have been wired type b, not type a. Most commercial cat 5 cable is type b wire ring scheme. That could be your problem.

[sticks4legs]

You mention patch cord.....

in the networking world patch cord is much difference than a network cable.

 

Patch cord crosses over the wiring.  Think of it like 1 way tunnels, if you use a patch cord in the wrong setup you will have cross over and have head on collisions where you want things to run straight through. 

 

You need a network cable

 

Hope this might help

[dgrant]

I'll attempt to re-word it so maybe he'll understand from different word usage, Computer USB port connects directly to the LOR USB adapter. A regular CAT5 cable (not a crossover cable or patch cord), to the LOR controller itself. When you launch the HWU(Hardware Utility) refresh it, the blinking light on the controller should go solid green...no more blinking. Solid green, means its connected and seeing and the HWU will report that its found the controller.

 

What a lot of people don't know is that the LOR USB adapter is converting the serial data stream to a RS-485 serial data stream which allows for 64 devices on that path. Just because LOR is using Cat5 cables, its because they are cheap and work just fine for RS485 communications but its NOT TCPIP comm.

[slipperyclam]

Sorry for the confusion and poor terminology was a long day in the cold 10hrs finishing up and then no network connection. I did find the problem I had wired the port on the side of my house to type A I switched that. Than I  found in hast I had wired the plug in the basement Type B and completely backwards. I found this by heading M1s advise and went and bought a tester. And Now we have dancing lights

[-klb-]

For clarity, most patch cords are not crossover cables. Excluding lab configurations, fewer than 1 in 20 cables will be crossover. Computer to switch is designed to be straight thru in Ethernet. Crossover is only used in computer to computer, and switch to switch configurations, and is becoming less common with gigabit and auto-x interfaces.

But, ironically, a cable with TIA 568B at one end, and TIA 568A for the other does actually make a functional Ethernet crossover cable. But not by design. 568A is how telco types would assign colors to pairs, and 568B is how computer types did it.

[-klb-]

Sorry for the confusion and poor terminology was a long day in the cold 10hrs finishing up and then no network connection. I did find the problem I had wired the port on the side of my house to type A I switched that. Than I  found in hast I had wired the plug in the basement Type B and completely backwards. I found this by heading M1s advise and went and bought a tester. And Now we have dancing lights

Glad you found it. This is something I occasionally do when I don't realize that the cable I cut in half and put new ends on was wired 568A. I never do A unless matching existing, or required, and hardly ever run into a cable built as A, so I never think to check first.

I need to check that the batteries in my tester are still good. I think it has been a few months since I used mine.

[m1ke05]

Sorry for the confusion and poor terminology was a long day in the cold 10hrs finishing up and then no network connection. I did find the problem I had wired the port on the side of my house to type A I switched that. Than I  found in hast I had wired the plug in the basement Type B and completely backwards. I found this by heading M1s advise and went and bought a tester. And Now we have dancing lights

Glad its all fixed. Yeah that tester is my life saver especially when putting in 10 hour days at work and an other 6 hours of LOR work at home. The brain gets a little fried!

[Max-Paul]

You mention patch cord.....

in the networking world patch cord is much difference than a network cable.

 

Patch cord crosses over the wiring.  Think of it like 1 way tunnels, if you use a patch cord in the wrong setup you will have cross over and have head on collisions where you want things to run straight through. 

 

You need a network cable

 

Hope this might help

Well I got a little secret for you Sticks. First we are using NETWORK cables aka Ethernet cables. And a Patch cord is a straight thru cable. Were as a Crossover cable is just that. Please do not confuse the issue with something else.

 

BTW what the heck is the difference between "Networking cable" and a "Network cable"?

[Max-Paul]

Good business Slippery. I have never own a tester myself, till about the second year of LOR. I usually make good cables and rarely have to cut off an end and re-do. But this harsh enviroment and moving around the cables while they are about frozen has caused more failures. This tester sure has been a work saver and head scratching. BTW Thanks KLB for the help.

[Jeff Messer]

Well my question is if you had an A cable but wired ends as B will it matter? All my buried cables are 568B cables but some of my short jumpers say 3 feet long are A cable but ends wired as B.

 

Jeff.

[KStatefan]

The cable is the same just 4 twisted pairs.  The difference is just how it is terminated. The important part is that each end of the cable is terminated with the same standard.

 

[Jeff Messer]

My Problem was a cable wire as below and both end were the same. Changed this cable out and now flawless.

 

white blue

blue white

white orange

orange white

white green

green white

white brown

brown white

[-klb-]

My Problem was a cable wire as below and both end were the same. Changed this cable out and now flawless.

 

white blue

blue white

white orange

orange white

white green

green white

white brown

brown white

This is neither TIA 568A, nor B, and results in the differential signaling not riding on a twisted pair. 4&5 are the data pair. Wired this way, 4 is twisted with 3, and 5 is twisted with 6, when 4 is supposed to be twisted with 5.