Use a standard modular cord the flat type that goes from a jack to a telephone set an 18 in or 7 foot would be fine . Plug one end int the CM20 at the other end cut of the modular plug.Strip 4 inches of the jacket sheath off strip 1 inch of insulation from the 4 wires . You have to look at the drawing from MRC .Use a marker to mark the edge along the length of the cord on the side that lines up with pin 2 black . Now wire all 4 of those in order blk pin 2 red pin 3 grn pin 4 yel pin 5 you may want to tin these ends with solder or use spade tips. The base of the block may be marked B R G Y you can use that to help keep you straight The jack cover will have short spade tip colored B R G Y wire put those on the same color screws . Instead of using more cords and splitters use some standard 4 conductor telephone wire to extend to other jacks wiring the color to match . You should be able to now plug your coil cord for the HH control and use it. The most important thing is to be sure the cord you cut is flat and the wire are correct in relation to the diagram from MRC.
Alost guarantee you're getting an extra flip in there when you run your own wires. Reverse the order of all 4 at your female jack and see if it works. Throught the whole system if the red is on the right of the plug on the handheld, then the right contact in the jack has to conenct to the right side of the plug going in to the CM20 base. And so on, for all 4 wires. And if your jack is a 6 conductor one, it's the center 4 that are used.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
It has been twelve years since I had my MRC20s. I had to of them. I used all four wire modular plugs and jacks. I used a modular spliter from the MRC 20 then ran a modular cord in both directions around the layout. Each MRC 20 had its own outlets. I used two port modular wall phone jacks. The top plug was for one MRC 20 and the bottom plug was for the other. I coler coded the modular cords and jacks so they would not get mixed up. I also used DPDT (center off) switches to control each block. Up was for one MRC 20 and down for the other. I color coded these as well. I did use common ground wiring so I only needed to run three wires to each block.
Jim, Modeling the Kansas City Southern Lines in HO scale.
You might want to have a "conversation" with onrman3 on this forum. He had a very recent posting about a similar problem: http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/themes/trc/forums/thread.aspx?ThreadID=171520
HI,
Thanks for the info. I'll look at my wiring again. I thought I had it correct because I used jacks that had color wires already in place.
The coil wire from the CM 20 was: yellow, green,black,red into the CM 20 it self.
Red,black,green,yellow into the hand control. and this works fine.
Its when I try and connect to an additional jack that the problem begins.
Walt
Hi!
I had two MRC 20s for my DC layout (1993-2008) and had them wired for 2nd controllers on the other side of the layout. I used the old style land line phone wires and plugs, etc., all of 4 wires.
I wish I could recall exactly how I wired it, but if you draw a schematic (using colors for each wire) it should be pretty straightforward as I recall. Anyway, I suspect you have got a wire/wires reversed.
Note that the right side of a plug going in is the left side going out. In other words, the sequence of the 4 wires on one end is the opposite of the sequence on the other end. Not sure that is clear, and maybe others can explain that better than me.
Good Luck!
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
I have a Control Master 20 power pack and it works great out of the box. The problem I am having is trying to install additional phone jacks so I can have walk around control on my layout.
I have used 4 pin plugs into 4 pin jacks with no luck and 6 pin plugs into 4 pin plugs as suggested by MRC and still cannot get my locos to go in reverse.
What am I doing wrong?
I have wired the female jacks (4 color wires) in the right order to the next female plug with no success.
Appreciate any help I can get.