RJ45 Pigtail

[tbone321]

I'm curious now, why the 4 core on the actual hub?

The primary purpose of doing this it is to get away from cat5 cable being used between the hub and the controller.  There seems to be WAAAAY to much voltage drop and the RJ45 connector was simply not designed for this type of use.  My display will also be in a serious state of flux for the next few years which means that many things will be moving around as well as being added and changed.  It simply is not practial for me to have to keep ordering custom cables only to move somthing and make the cable useless and require me to have to order another one.  The contacts on the 4 core connectors are much more capable of handeling the current we are pushing thru them withou the corrosion issues seen with the RJ45's.  Doing this also prevents me from accidently plugging the wrong item into one of the hubs controller outputs and damaging the device.

[tbone321]

I'm curious now, why the 4 core on the actual hub?

who is suggesting that?  ...I suggest you use rj45 connectors on cat5 wire to connect to the hub...  at the SSC, replace the rj45 connector with 4-core waterproof connectors.  you need the twisted pair.   and since the hub should be protected from the elements, it is fine to continue with rj45 connectors.

It was me and unless your hubs are inside the house, they are still subject to the outside weather conditions including high humidity and temp changes that can cause condensation in the connectors.  At the speed that we send data, I'm not sure how much we really NEED the twisted pair, or at least not at the cat5 level.  I will do plenty of testing, subjecting the wire types I am looking at to various types and levels of interference to see what works and what doesn't before I make any commitments.

[plaberge]

I'm curious now, why the 4 core on the actual hub?

who is suggesting that?  ...I suggest you use rj45 connectors on cat5 wire to connect to the hub...  at the SSC, replace the rj45 connector with 4-core waterproof connectors.  you need the twisted pair.   and since the hub should be protected from the elements, it is fine to continue with rj45 connectors.

It was me and unless your hubs are inside the house, they are still subject to the outside weather conditions including high humidity and temp changes that can cause condensation in the connectors.  At the speed that we send data, I'm not sure how much we really NEED the twisted pair, or at least not at the cat5 level.  I will do plenty of testing, subjecting the wire types I am looking at to various types and levels of interference to see what works and what doesn't before I make any commitments.

My experience on the *very* wet west coast is that RJ45 connectors well protected from direct rain or spray, for example under an eve, do just fine. My hubs are inside the recommended marine battery boxes, with the power supply fan moving the air regularly, I have not seen any condensation and zero tarnishing of the copper in the sockets. Connectors carrying DMX, PIXELNET & audio have shown little corrosion exposed to the elements as long as they were oriented to keep the rain out of the socket.

However, ALL connectors from the hubs to the SCCs that were exposed to rain, even those wrapped with electrical tape, corroded amazingly quickly and had to be replaced with waterproof connectors - the high current & seems to suck the moisture out of the air and eat the metal away.

[duane.mosley]

I'm curious now, why the 4 core on the actual hub?

  At the speed that we send data, I'm not sure how much we really NEED the twisted pair, or at least not at the cat5 level.  I will do plenty of testing, subjecting the wire types I am looking at to various types and levels of interference to see what works and what doesn't before I make any commitments.

I had 2 boxes of cat3 that were free so I used it to run my dmx controllers, couple of runs 75' plus and everything ran smooth. I did however use cat 5 on the pixelnet for the zues as well as my main wire from the dongle to the hub.

[tbone321]

I also have every intention of continuing using cat5 and the RJ45 jacks for Pixelnet and DMX feed lines. 

[bcstuff]

I am looking into using the 3 core and 4 core connectors for the SSC next year due to corrosion too.

I found on DIYC for about the same price as Cat5 costs me 18/4  stranded wire 500 ft  ~ $47
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by the way 3 - 24awg from cat5 strands = 19g
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[mmciver]

This is all great feedback.  Thank you.

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

[Steve Gase]

I am looking into using the 3 core and 4 core connectors for the SSC next year due to corrosion too.

I found on DIYC for about the same price as Cat5 costs me 18/4  stranded wire 500 ft  ~ $47
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by the way 3 - 24awg from cat5 strands = 19g
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the wire is stranded, and so its good for some uses...  but its not twisted pair, so it is not good for the hub-to-ssc run.  You can use this wire for the ssc-to-pixel run -- but it should be no more than 6'.  You can also use it for dumb string connections (DSC of MR16 connected to a bunch of dumb string pixels).

[mmciver]

Wow!

I am really glad I asked the question!  This is a lot of great feedback.
Several years ago I made some RGB wall washes and used RJ45's for the connectors.  Even in Dry Arizona I had trouble with corrosion!
I ordered 4 pin waterproof connectors so that I could change those out this year.

I like the Idea of using those 4 pin connectors out in the elements.  I never have corrosion issues with my RJ45's for pixelnet or DMX, but it has not been good for my cables with power on them.

Thanks everyone for this great information to noodle on!

As I do more RGB I definitely look for your experience to help me miss out on mistakes that I could avoid!

Mike

[Steve Gase]

I brought in my equipment earlier in the week, and just now started to look over the first of the elements before putting it away for the year -- I've got some work to do.


The DMX connection over pigtails -- the only part of my display not using water-proof connectors -- suffered from the weather.  This happened even though the connectors were pointed downward.  I've got 16 aether2, all looking similar.  Both input and output connectors had problems.  Since I keep power on throughout the month, it looks like the charged wire attracted the moisture -- particularly the +12v wire.

[bcstuff]

I found on DIYC for about the same price as Cat5 costs me 18/4  stranded wire 500 ft  ~ $47
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the wire is stranded, and so its good for some uses...  but its not twisted pair, so it is not good for the hub-to-ssc run.  You can use this wire for the ssc-to-pixel run -- but it should be no more than 6'.  You can also use it for dumb string connections (DSC of MR16 connected to a bunch of dumb string pixels).

At the speed that we send data, I'm not sure how much we really NEED the twisted pair, or at least not at the cat5 level.  I will do plenty of testing, subjecting the wire types I am looking at to various types and levels of interference to see what works and what doesn't before I make any commitments.

I will be interested to see how much difference twisted pair makes at varying distances.

[n1ist]

The power leads didn't attract moisture;  the voltage and current is probably high enough for some electroplating to occur - the gold plates off and then the underlying copper corrodes.

Tesla was right; we do need wireless power distribution.  Now to figure out how to do it without setting cornfields on fire...

/mike

[txag2008]

When cutting the rj45 end off a cat5 cable and replacing with a 4pin connector, I'm assuming you're just soldering together and covering with heatshrink?  How hard is it to make this connection?

[Jimmy]

I've been using a product on all connections that Holiday Coro was selling called Corrosion X (Purchased from local boat dealer). Just completed inspection of 64 Cat 5/RJ45 connections with NOT one failure. 48 of these are on Holiday Coro's Corostar meaning they are in a dead space between the damp ground and the black coroplas base (very high humidy). The other 16 were in the open exposed to elements everyday.

Might also add that I've used the same Cat 5/RJ45's for the last 2 years with no problems.

[Steve Gase]

When cutting the rj45 end off a cat5 cable and replacing with a 4pin connector, I'm assuming you're just soldering together and covering with heatshrink?  How hard is it to make this connection?

Yes, I cut off the connector, and soldered the pigtail to the end of the cat5 with shrink tubing.

See the write-up in the wiki for the wiring:

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