Using External Timer

[Notisopse]

Hi, I can't figure out where I should plug in an external timer. I have two 16 channel units, Unit 01 and Unit 02. I also use a mini Showtime Director.

 

This is basically the setup. 

 

 

Unit 01 and Unit 02 each have 2 plugs. The showtime director is attached to Unit 1. Now, which of the four plugs should be put on the time in order to cut power to the Showtime Director when necessary? Thank you!

[Surfing4Dough]

Might just want to connect an external power supply to your mini-director, and attach that alone to the timer (leaving the controllers powered 24/7).  See page 10 of this manual:

http://www1.lightorama.com/PDF/mDM-MP3_Man_Web.pdf

[woodinvillejohn]

Surfing4Dough mentions installing an external power supply for the mini director.  My question is how is this different from simply putting the controller powering the mini director on a timer?  I'm probably missing something in the details.  Last year as I recall the lights hooked up to the other controller all stayed lit after the controller powering the mini director was turned off.  I'm trying to figure out how to get everything to go dark once the timer turns the mini director and it's powering controller off.  My controllers have power feeds on separate circuits. I'm just now finishing getting everything hooked up, so will be dealing with this tomorrow.  Thanks for any ideas.

[Surfing4Dough]

Surfing4Dough mentions installing an external power supply for the mini director.  My question is how is this different from simply putting the controller powering the mini director on a timer?  I'm probably missing something in the details.  Last year as I recall the lights hooked up to the other controller all stayed lit after the controller powering the mini director was turned off.  I'm trying to figure out how to get everything to go dark once the timer turns the mini director and it's powering controller off.  My controllers have power feeds on separate circuits. I'm just now finishing getting everything hooked up, so will be dealing with this tomorrow.  Thanks for any ideas.

 

Seems to me you answered your own question.  I have read that people that just rely on cutting power to the 1st controller sometimes have difficulty.  Therefore they found they had to put all the controllers on timers.  Much easier to just hook up the mini-directo to a timer. When its power is cut, all controllers stop receiving a signal so they go dark.  It doesn't even take 5 minutes to attach the external power supply as described in the manual.  You may even have such a power supply laying around from an old phone or similar. 

[Steven]

My question is how is this different from simply putting the controller powering the mini director on a timer?

 

The mini director is being powered by all the controllers. The power from controller number 2 is passing through the network cable, through controller 1, and to the director. If the network cable between controller 1 and 2 is long, the director may not work 100% when controller 1 is off due to the voltage drop in the cable.

 

If you really want to shut the director down by cutting the power to controller 1, you could open the cable that goes from controller 1 to controller 2 and cut the white wire with the green stripe. Then the director will be powered by only controller 1.

 

Or you could follow the instructions and power the director from a separate power supply.

[a31ford]

Steven has answered your question, HOWEVER, I would like to expand on that (hope you don't mind Steven)

 

There are 4 wires used in the LOR network cable (most of us use the cat 5 A standard) (TIA 485 A) HOWEVER there is also the TIA 485 B (telco) standard, that switches the green and orange pairs places W/O, O, W/G, B, W/B, G, W/B, B (this is Steven's configuration)......

 

Getting Back to TIA 485 A (the data standard) it would be W/G, G, W/O, B, W/B, O, W/B, B (In this case you would cut the white/orange, NOT the white/green).

 

As well, one can use the Telco 6 pin cable, but that gets to confusing.

 

ALL, the LOR equipment uses the middle 2 conductors in the Cat 5 jack for data, pin 4 is data +, where as pin 5 is data - (RS-485 standard), AS WELL, they ALSO share pin 3 and pin 6, which are a common "power rail" for supplying power to stuff like the mini director, and can power motion sensors (advanced wiring needed).

 

SO, to clarify things when looking at the Cat 5 cable end, contacts UP, and facing you, the pins are 1 to 8 , left to right, so what ever wire color is in the 3 position, THAT is the wire that needs to be cut, BUT, only in the cable that goes to the "NEXT" controller down stream, from the one closest (item 6 in you diagram) (if the 2nd controller was say, #8, then you would cut the wire in the cable between 6 & 8, this would sever the power (but NOT data)) connection, so ONLY the first controller would feed power to the mini director.

 

I've included this info for others, that might be looking for the same solution.

 

Greg

[woodinvillejohn]

Thanks for all of the informative answers to my questions.  I'm slowly getting this figured out.

[Steven]

SO, to clarify things when looking at the Cat 5 cable end, contacts UP, and facing you, the pins are 1 to 8 , left to right, so what ever wire color is in the 3 position, THAT is the wire that needs to be cut,

Because a picture makes some things much easier to understand:

As Greg said, the "data standard" is T-568A, but there is a lot of T-586B out there, and I have found that most patch cables that you buy from stores like Radio Shack are T-586B. The only difference between the two is that the orange and green colors are swapped.

 

As an interesting bit of trivia, if you (accidentally) wire one end of a patch cable as T-586A, and the other end as T-568B, you have created an Ethernet crossover cable, that will still work fine on most modern network switches and computer ports.

 

In any case, LOR uses pins 4 and 5 as RS485 network data, pin 6 as ground (for both network and power), and pin 3 as auxillary power.

[Jim Hans]

While the posts here are very informative.... I guess I'm asking why you want to go through all this trouble to power your stuff down? I think most of us don't power anything off until we take it down.

[Steven]

While the posts here are very informative.... I guess I'm asking why you want to go through all this trouble to power your stuff down? I think most of us don't power anything off until we take it down.

The original question was how to shut the show down at the end of the night when using the mini director, which doesn't have its own built-in timer.