4 pin connector and cable on SSC

[zwiller]

One more thing, I keep all strings of nodes off an SSC to less than 80 nodes and that's only three effects.  I prefer to run less than 50 off a single SSC.

joe

I had 5 elements that maxed out the ssc (120 nodes of flexstrips) and I had no issues at all. 

So I see most of the issues are from rain and ssc's on the ground.  Since I want the strings near the ground for my mega I will probably use a second battery box to house the ssc's and just run 3 wire and connectors to the strings since the diameter will be less than the safe max ssc to node distance.  I will probably forgo the pigtail and mount a male ended cat5 to ssc directly.  Might even try to keep it all in one since I might only need 4 ssc's. 

[jnealand]

For my pixel tree I ran a 4ft cat 5 wire soldered to the SSC and then going all the way to inside my battery box with the SSC.  Worked great.  You could make that 4ft wire become a 6ft wire or whatever you need and there would be no cat5 connections with direct exposure to water or other elements.  I just used a velcro wrap to attach my SSC pipe bombs to each leg of the mega tree and I put them up high enough that the cat5 did not even touch the ground, but I did make sure that there was a bottom dip outside of the battery box so water running down the wire did not just flow into the battery box.

[dearvbguru]

This year it seemed like we had rain every weekend plus one or two times during the week.

I had all RJ45 connectors for power and data and then used the 3 core pigtails to the light strands.

After running the show for about two weeks, I had two issues.  Some lights were staying on when the show was off and another time I had whole sections not lighting.  After some experimentation I found out that the driver chips on the hubs were overloading and would shut down.  I first thought it was fuses blown until I figured out what was going on.

So the next day, I went around and one at a time unplugged each SSC and sprayed corrosion X on the RJ45 plug and on the RJ45 socket.  Once I had did this on all the SSC's I went back around and started plugging them back together in same order, giving just a little drying time.  If they seemed a little wet still I would give them a quick shake to get any excess off.  When doing this I noticed several of the connectors the contacts had become black on some of the plugs from moisture.  The show had started for that evening and when i was plugging them in each strand would start working.  After I sprayed the corrosion X, I did not have any more problems for the remaining 4 weeks even though we had tons more rain.  I would say about 80% of my connectors were hand crimped compared to pre-made ones.

So my $.02 worth the corrosion X worked wonders and even corrected some of the connectors that had some black corrosion on the pins.  The flexibility of the CAT5 cables and jacks along with their cheap price and quick connections and repairs and local availability makes more sense to me especially if you have to crimp a new cable or something quick like when a squirrel decides to chew through your CAT5 cables.

[caretaker]

My setup is a long 70' cat6 from the house to a battery box at the base of my mega tree. Inside the battery box is my 1000W PS and active hub, from there I run out 16 ten foot cat6 patch cable to all my SSC's and another cat6 cable for DMX out. All my SSC's have the cat5 end facing down and I turn off my PS every night and did not have any problems with moisture in the cat5 connectors.

[RJ]

For my pixel tree I ran a 4ft cat 5 wire soldered to the SSC and then going all the way to inside my battery box with the SSC.  Worked great. 

This was the original design, there was just the limit of if you had an issue changing it out could be tougher so we went to the pigtails with the RJ45.

RJ

[RJ]

I see some had the plugs on the ground , this will always be a problem as it cause it to lay in water if it rains or snows. I think it looks like what I was doing is working for everyone. Keep it off the ground pointed down and a little corrosion x and it works well. So seems we should stay as we are. I also understand that they are splicing the 4 pin connectors to cat5, I though you were using the 4 wire untwisted cable.

RJ

[chrisatpsu]

I though you were using the 4 wire untwisted cable.

RJ

JoefromOzarks is using the 4 conductor untwisted cable