Any chance to get to 165' on the remote display?

[RegGuheert]

I know the manual says 100 feet is the limit for the remote display:

Since the Classic transmits power and data signals through the phone
cable to the MNGP the length of the cable is limited to 100ft.

Unfortunately the conduit to the house is about 140' long.  We've run CAT5e cable I bought on Amazon and I'm wondering if I can improve my chances to get the power up to the house by taking advantage of the extra two wires that I have available.  If you think this might help, can you please tell me the pinout of the MNGP connector so that we can double up the power wires.

Hey, if it works you might sell another display!

TIA!  Reg

[Halfcrazy]

I will test this configuration as soon as a get a pair of minutes and can unspool 2-300 ft of cat 5 maybe today while I watch my Classic absorb.

[RegGuheert]

Thanks, Ryan!

[niel]

it would seem to me that having another wire pair paralleled would cut the resistance in half and would double the distance, but you might want to ask them what, in their opinion, limited the spec to 100ft or was it just a case of not being tested any further?

[Halfcrazy]

Ok I tried 200 ft of cable this AM and I did get resets occasionally indicating that it was experiencing voltage drop. If it is voltage drop doubling the conductors should double the distance. I have 2 things I am trying in the morning one being the paralleling of the power leads at 200ft. The second one is I am building a power supply that will power the MNGP from ac power. The second may take our distance out to a large number and I will test that as well. Stay tuned for results tomorrow.

[RegGuheert]

Thanks for the testing and the update, Ryan!

Just so I understand:  Today's testing was with a standard CAT5e cable with nothing put in parallel, correct?  Tomorrow, you will try the idea of using pairs of wires for power and ground plus test with a good supply at the remote end?

Thanks again!

[Halfcrazy]

Correct I am building the power over Classic network adapter now. Here is a picture of prototype 1

[attachment deleted by admin]

[niel]

be aware that the extra connection points being introduced by the adapters will increase the resistance of the overall circuit somewhat even with 1 wire being used as well as for the 2 wires paralleled and may depend on how good the chinese made those adapters too. if you use a phone on them and wiggle them slightly and wind up with static in the receiver then it is a poor connection and will likely do the same to the classic. it may suffice in general as a rough testing for the 2 wires paralleled though.

[Halfcrazy]

Early results are in. I tried prototype 1 and it was to small of a wall wart. So we have prototype 2 it has a wall wart that is 9vdc 400ma this works great. I tested multiple configurations so far they have all used the  MidNite Power of Classic Network Adapter prototype 2 (MNPCNA).

Test 1 200ft of cat5 without the MNPCNA the MNGP works pretty good I got a couple resets and when the back light is as bright as it goes and I hit play on audio it goes blank but does not reset so 200ft is to long with 6 strands of cat5

Test 2 200ft of cat5 with the MNPCNA the MNGP works perfect

Test 3 600ft of cat5 without the MNPCNA the MNGP has a hard time coming to life and will not work

Test 4 600ft of cat5 with the MNPCNA the MNGP works perfect

Conclusion of this AM's testing is that I need volunteers to help me clean up 600ft of cat5 cable that is running all over my garage 

I will test the paralleled conductors for power and see if that makes it stable at 200 and 600 I intend to run the 600ft version here for a day or so before I give the PCNA the green light and I will need to spool out more cat5 to see if it will go to 1000ft or maybe 800ft?

[RegGuheert]

Thanks for the update, Ryan!  That sounds very promising!

I'd offer to help clean up your lab, but my arms aren't quite long enough! 

[niel]

make some antennas out of it.

[RegGuheert]

Ryan, can you please let me know which pins are power and ground?  I'm ready to wire this up now and I would like to double up the conductors on those two pins.  TIA!

[boB]

make some antennas out of it.

Receiver antenna only, please !!  

BTW, Somewhere here I thought I had  posted a link to the pinouts of those connectors.

boB


Yes, here is a link to the discussion...

http://midnitesolar.com/smf_forum/index.php?topic=137.msg828#msg828


And, Here is a PDF of the pinouts of the 3 RS232 comm jacks  (as seen from the top of the board)...


http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1641463/ClassicCommJacks_Rev-.pdf

boB (again)

[RegGuheert]

Thanks, Bob!

That's just what I need!  I'll give it a try and I will let you know how things go.

Reg

[RegGuheert]

O.K.  I doubled up the wires on +9V and GND and the MNGP works just fine up in the house, 167 wire feet from the Classic 200!  Thanks for the assistance, Ryan and boB!

Just a couple of more details on what I did, in case anyone is interested:

In the house, I put an RJ11 Jack which uses a punch-down tool to insert the wires.  This is, by far, the recommended approach here.  It was fairly straightforward to punch down two wires into a single slot with any risk of a short circuit.  With this jack I can simply connect the display using a short patch cable.

In the equipment shed, I crimped a 6-pin RJ11 plug onto the end of the Cat5e cable.  While I had "success", I would NOT recommend doing this.  What I did was I stripped the insulation off two pairs of wires and twisted the bare ends around each other and inserted them into the plug as if they were a single wire.  There are a bunch of problems with this approach with the worst one being that it would be VERY easy to create a short inside the connector which could potentially cause a malfunction in or even possibly damage to your Classic controller.  The other problem is that the shielded Cat5e cable will not fit into the RJ11 plug, so there is no strain relief for the small wires inside.  Since there is a box about 8 feet from the Classic, I will likely cut the cable in the box and put another punch-down jack in there and run a short patch cable from the Classic to the jack to make the final connection.

As far as wiring goes, I chose to not twist anything around power or ground, instead using a twisted pair each for +9V and GND.  FWIW, here is how I wired up the connectors from top to bottom in boB's diagram:

LED:  White with brown stripe
+9V:  Orange PLUS White with orange stripe
RX:  Blue
TX:  White with blue stripe
GND:  Green PLUS White with green stripe
LED:  Brown

If anyone sees a better way to wire this up instead of using a punch-down jack, I'm all ears.  That one suits me OK since it is fairly straightforward and seems to have a high probability of success but perhaps there are other ways?