From static to RGB

[TheBanker]

This year I am moving from static straight to RGB animation.  I've got most of my smart strings, hubs, dongles, le's, aethers, rainbow flood..all built.  Well almost.  What should I use for all the connections for the le's, ss.....

Who wants to volunteer as my on call help so I can get this all up and running?



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[taybrynn]

I just bought a bunch of cat5 cables from monoprice, they all work great.

I decided to use different colored cat5 cables to denote different things.

Previously, I have been using yellow cables for all my LOR RS485 connections.
That will likely stay, so I had to use something else this year.

My pure DMX signal cords are grey.  Thats what I run between the SS HUB DMXOUT and the LE BOXES.

My pixelnet only (like from dongle to SS HUB or from a SS HUB to a PASS HUB) are purple.

My powered SS cables (from SS HUB to SSC) are black.  I figured this was consistent with most of
existing AC power cables being black (with some green or yellow also).  I already was using green
in the house, and like the brighter colors to find in the snow ... and helps the kids see em also.

I drew up a chart with the layout and estimated distances (over estimated) ... and then ordered based
on that.

[TheBanker]

Interesting.....I am thinking of the color coded thing as I type.  I have no snow here.  If everything was black it would be easier to hide.  But color coded would be easier to notice right away what its for and where its going.  I will think on this.

How about the wires for the LE and the connectors for the RGB's to the ss controller???  What did you use on all those?

[shaunkad]

my color code

 dmx green
pixel net purple
smart strings black
ethernet gray
crossover cable pink 

[rimist]

I recall a similar discussion about extension cords. The net result was no one looks at the cords in the dark, they are to dazzled by the lights. Color coding sounds smart.

- Rimist

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[jeffcoast]

For the RGB to the SSCs I got the connectors listed in the wiki. They are great, other than having my friend help me putting some of them on and them ending up on the wrong end of 7 of my smart strips. I forgot to tell him that the is a direction to the things and they had to go on the input end. 

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[PJNMCT]

my color code

 dmx green
pixel net purple
smart strings black
ethernet gray
crossover cable pink

Maybe you should put this up on the wiki and start kind of a defacto optional standard.   

-Paul

[taybrynn]

For LE cords, I took some 9' green indoor christmas cords from the target 75% sale and cut each into 4 pieces.

- a two prong male connector I used for LE input lines.
- a 3 way female jack and 3' cord for one LE channel.
- and two 3' pieces of spt2 cord

One the spt2 cord sections, I used female vampire plugs and boy do those make nice channel cords for the LE.  The 3' size is nice and they are not nearly as bulky as regular input cords found on say a stock LOR controller.

So for each $.33 cord, you really can make 4 usable things ... and the only thing that wasn't really cheap was the female vampire plugs ... around 66 cents each.  I'd like to see a COOP for those vampire plugs sometime.

[TheBanker]

That sounds like it will work.  How long is the ac cord and what did you do for the second one?

[taybrynn]

The AC cord I just made arbitrarily short, like 12-15" and since your doing 16 female cords per LE (or using 5+ cords to start with) you'll end up
with many 3 spare MALE AC cords, since you only need 2 on each LE.

I just figured I'm not going to have enough for anything useful, so made the male input cords short, like a 12" and all the other female cords 3 equal lengths,
or around 3' each (prob. a little less).