roberttwardzik Posted October 3, 2019 Posted October 3, 2019 I plan on using 3 controllers this year. First time using LOR. Purchased the showtime central, singing trees, and am using the Mini director and fm transmitter. If I am wanting to use more than one controller hooked up to a mechanical timer what is this special cable I need? Or would it be better If i just hooked up each controller to timer and then just ran the CAT 5 cable to each? I attached a picture of what it says on LOR website. Did not want to create a ticket through help desk. Thank you in advance
Mr. P Posted October 3, 2019 Posted October 3, 2019 No special cable just a standard cat5 or higher patch cable.
roberttwardzik Posted October 3, 2019 Author Posted October 3, 2019 Thank you! I was wondering. Only other thing is that each controller has 2 power cords to be plugged in. I’m guessing I could plug them all in together using one timer since I’m running all LED. The electrical load shouldn’t be an issue.
mpageler Posted October 3, 2019 Posted October 3, 2019 Not familiar with show directory so did a checked it out on LOR's store page. Since it doesn't have a built-in clock, you trigger it by a timer/motion sensor. So I guess I would put a timer on the dirtory and and just plug the controllers directory into power and leave them on as most of us do.
roberttwardzik Posted October 3, 2019 Author Posted October 3, 2019 The director is powered by the controller. I should be able to figure something out. Only trying to use one timer for light show and one timer for my other Christmas decorations.
Mega Arch Posted October 4, 2019 Posted October 4, 2019 (edited) 7 hours ago, roberttwardzik said: I plan on using 3 controllers this year. First time using LOR. Purchased the showtime central, singing trees, and am using the Mini director and fm transmitter. If I am wanting to use more than one controller hooked up to a mechanical timer what is this special cable I need? Or would it be better If i just hooked up each controller to timer and then just ran the CAT 5 cable to each? I attached a picture of what it says on LOR website. Did not want to create a ticket through help desk. Thank you in advance As stated above - it works fine with normal cat5 cables. However, mechanical timers very a bit. The miniDirector pulls it's power from the closest controller inline. So if it comes on before the other controllers are on - lights are only controlled for what's on... To correct this - special cable. Make your own cat5 using just the center pair - pins 4&5. Center pair is data only - so power doesn't transfer back from other controllers that might be on. Use this cable between the 1st and 2nd controller. Then back to normal cat5 cables between the 2nd and all the rest... Matter of fact - if you use the special cable method, you really could leave all the other controllers plugged in without a timer. Just use the timer on controller 1. no worries.... Edited October 4, 2019 by Mega Arch
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