Thanks Martin, now I under stand why everyone thought I was nuts.
To everybody reading my posts on this thread what I actually meant was "Flipped" as in turning over the cable at the end of the cable ( like a twist in the middle ) and connect the wires to the female RJ12 jack as they will now mate color to color, but the first untouched RJ12 plug will also mate to the RJ12 female jack in the DS64.
In other words just like a LocoNet/Data cable is made up.
NOW to add insult to injury ( not really ) I just had a long conversation with my Lady friend and it seems that I will be able to acquire more space in the very near future. As like some of you my Lady friend thought it would be silly to just add the one jack and I would/could make my layout much larger. So I just a few minutes ago did what Phoebe Vet mentioned and I ordered two UP5's and a crimper plus RJ12 modular plugs.
I will now insert a Data cable into the Zephyr then to a UP5, then to the remaining UP5.
Another thread maybe wasted for if I'd have done this in the first place I never would have needed to start a new thread. Oh well.
Wadda ya mean I'm old ? Just because I remember gasoline at 9 cents a gallon and those big coal burning steamers.
rockislandnut How many times do I have to say I would cut off one RJ12 modular plug on a six wire telephone cable ( by the way a six wire telephone cable is called a 3 line telephone cable ) and reverse the wires which will make pin # 1 ( white ) mate to pin #1 and pin # 6 ( blue ) mate to pin # 6 at the RJ12 female jack.
How many times do I have to say I would cut off one RJ12 modular plug on a six wire telephone cable ( by the way a six wire telephone cable is called a 3 line telephone cable ) and reverse the wires which will make pin # 1 ( white ) mate to pin #1 and pin # 6 ( blue ) mate to pin # 6 at the RJ12 female jack.
Actually your use of the word "reverse" in your scenario is clouding the issue. Telephone cables are "reversed" from one end to the other. (pin 1 to pin 6)
What you are actually going to do is "Straighten" the wires after cutting the jack off of one end. I had to read over your description several times until it finally made sense. You are going to have the same color wire on the left on both plugs. e.g. white on the left or blue on the left with the locking tab up.
Martin Myers
I just do not want to purchase pre made LocoNet Data cables ( or buy a modular crimper ) when all I want is one female RJ12 jack for one throttle.
Also for Phoebe Vet whom doesn't like a lot of info, I have no need for the Digitrax UP5 no mater if it only cost one dollar just so I can use a LocoNet Data cable. If I had more layout then I would say yes and buy the UP5 and therefore the LocoNet/Data cable.
I do apologize for starting this thread and I would not have if I had remembered I had the above LocoNet information. So I take full blame
Best way to end this thread peacefully is by saying "Thank you".
If you are confused over phoen vs data cables, look again carefully at the plugs on the correct examples of DIgitrax cables. Picture looking into that jack that plug connects to. For the plug on the left side of the picture, the black wire will connect to the right-most pin in the jack. Now turn around and face the other way - when the right-hand plug plugs in, the black wire will be on the right hand side of the jack. Exactly the same on both sides. That's a straight through cable. The right hand pin gets connected tot he right hand pin, the second from the right gets connected to the second from the right, and so on.
A telephone-style cable reverses that and connects the right hand pin of one jack tothe left hand pin of the second. Second fromt he right connects to second from the left, etc. Again, this is OK as long as you aren't connecting any boosters or BDL168s, but the 'danger' is that you might do this several years from now and forget this conversation, and wonder why things aren't working as expected, so it's best to wire things the right way.
It 'works' because of the 6 wires int he Loconet cable, only the left more and right most carry a signal with any 'polarity' (with other than DC, the proper term is 'phase'). The second pin from each side are both ground, and get tied together inside most devices. The center two are the actual Loconet signal, these get tied together in throttles and some other devices. So for the inner 4 wires, the order doesn't matter. Just the outer two, and then only for those deivces which need to 'mirror' the command station's track signal exactly.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Throwing out mountains of information, most of which is irrelevant to 90% of DCC users, is one reason that newcomers think that DCC is very complicated and more than they want to wade into.
A UP-5 is only $17 even if you pay MSRP. I know some people like to save a couple of dollars by cobbing together telephone parts, but even that is not that complicated. You don't need charts and pages of irrelevant information to tell you that cutting the plug off one end and turning it over will make your 6 conductor telephone cable into a data cable, and no one cares about micrometer measurements of various telephone plug sizes, which you will notice are exactly the same for all but two of the plugs.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Ok, I thought I was right as I did say I would use a six wire telephone cable,same as the "Data Cable" as they both use RJ12 six wire modular male plugs on each end. If you purchase a six wire telephone cable with the jacks already mounted they will still work with rail sync as Pin one and pin six are both "Rail sync. But Digitrax highly recommends flipping one of the modular jacks so pin one ( white ) and pin six ( blue ) mate when plugged into the LocoNet female jack. I just intend to not have a RJ12 on one end of the cable and reverse the wires so pin one mates to pin one.
Randy you are terrific when it comes to electronics, that I give you big credit for , but you do confuse me sometimes. Not sure if you read all my above post were I said I would just reverse the wires. The difference between six wire telephone cable and data cable had be for a while.
I knew in my binders somewhere I had the info but took awhile to find it. ( need a secretary )
Here is the good stuff on LocoNet.
Thanks all.
Now for some sleep.
That is another thing I am doing as I update the layout one 8 foot segment at a time. In addition to adding PS-14s, I am changing telephone cables to data cables.
By the time I am done it will all be wired the way it should have been from the beginning.
Yes, it will work. Using a telephone wire instead of a data wire won't result in a short when you add an additional booster - it will just flip the Rail A and Rail B connections relative to the ones ont eh Zephy, because the 'polarity' (phase) of the signal depends on the Railsync lines int eh Loconet cable, and a telephone type cable flips the order of the pins 1-6 to 6-1. Throttles don't care, they just rectify the Railsync signal to power themselves. Things like the DS64 don't use Ralsync, so they don't care either. It only matters (at present) for boosters and BDL168s (because the Railsync is used in timing Transponding).
rockislandnut Can I get the go ahead guys?? If so, tomorrow might be another day under the layout.
Can I get the go ahead guys?? If so, tomorrow might be another day under the layout.
Go for it.
Yeah I'd rather daisy chain the one DS64 ( only one ) to the Zephyr-Xtra, then the one modular jack that's left in the DS64 to a telephone wall box. I only need two walk around jacks like one in the front of the layout and one in the rear.
Since the layout is only a 4' X 8' ( HO ) there are six legs mounted on rubber tire casters pushed against the wall ( where backdrop is ). I usually operate the DT402 throttle in front Near one end of layout and another person uses the Zephyr for switching.
I need the extra modular jack in the rear with a UT4 that is hardly used for when I pull layout into the middle of the floor to work on track,scenery, etc.
Since I have a bunch of regular six wire cable I would just need to plug in the one modular plug in the rear of the DS64 and reverse the wires into the six wire wall jack which will be located screwed to the 1" X 6" pine frame. So no LocoNet special cable needed and no UP5 needed.
When I first installed the Tel. wall box ( floor molding box ) to the front of the layout I did not want anymore throttle outlets so I went with the wall box and reversed the wiring. Otherwise I'd have gone with the UP5 panel and would have had the extra jack to go to the other side of the layout but I did not.
I originally had the DS64 powered to the tracks but ever so often ( maybe every 5 or 6 times ) that the layouts master switch was turned on I would hear four snaps right in a row. I only have five turnouts ( one thrown manually ) hooked up to the DS64's default of 1-2-3-4 and each one was thrown but the display never agreed with C or T.
That was two months ago as since then a PS14 and a short piece of LocoNet cable from the Zephyr to the DS64 and there has been no turnout problems. ( yet-----knock on wood )
So if I understand right I can do this set up?----LocoNet from Zephyr to DS64 to telephone six wire wall jack. Other zephyr jack is being used to the tel.six wire jack in front of layout for DT402.
Randy said I could do it this way but if I ever decided to extend and add another booster that I would have a short. I think that is what he meant even though I really don't understand.
At the club we had a few of them lose their programming after track shorts. As a result we switched those units to dedicated power. The problem didn't return.
Springfield PA
Hamltnblue It's best to keep leave the power of the tracks to the trains. What you'll find is that when you power units like the DS64 off of track power strange things can happen whenever a loco shorts the rails.
It's best to keep leave the power of the tracks to the trains. What you'll find is that when you power units like the DS64 off of track power strange things can happen whenever a loco shorts the rails.
While I agree with you that DS-64s should be powered separately, I have 8 DS-64s. at the moment, 4 are powered by PS-14s and 4 are powered by the track. They all work fine.
I am in the process of rebuilding my layout one 8 foot section at a time. The 4 that are powered by the PS-14s are on the rebuilt sections. Eventually, as the rebuild progresses, they will all be changed over.
If you power the DS64 from the DCC buss you will not need a cable back to the Zephyr. The DS64 will get it's commands from the buss just like the loco's decoders. But if you have more than one of them they should use a power supply. Your Zephyr should be able to operate one DS64 with track power off the DCC buss.
Throttles aren't picky about telephone vs data cable orientation, since the middlet wo wires (Loconet) and the next outer pair (grounds) get connected together anywaym and throttles only use Railsync (the outer 2 wires) for power. Polarity does nto matter.
HOWEVER, polarity on the Railsync wires DOES matter for BDL168 block detectors and for additional boosters. If the cable used is a telephone-type with a flip, a downstream booster will have the rail A and rail B wires out of phase with the command station. So while telephone-style cables may work fine for now, when you expand the layout int he future and add a booster and the train shorts crossing the gaps from the section powered byt eh Zephyr to the section powered by the new booster, now you'll know why.
All Loconet devices have two jacks and are intended to be daisy chained. If you use the UP-5 instead of a telephone jack you can have as many of them around the layout as you like.
I have one loconet cable to operate four solenoid switches hooked up from the back of a Zephyr-Xtra to a DS64.The other loconet cable from the Zephyr goes to a six wire telephone box for my DT402 throttle.
This leaves me with one extra loconet modular jack on the rear of the DS64. Can I run a loconet cable from this extra DS64 jack to another telephone box which will be on the rear of the layout. I prefer a telephone box ( wall floor mold style ) as It is easier for me to just drill a small hole in my 1" X 6" No.2 pine layout frame for the flat wire cable to get through as I do not necessarily want the UP5 loconet universal panel as it's a monster hole.
I am thinking since the loconet cable is already connected to a port for the DT402 throttle that the loconet cable from the other DS64 modular jack being the same system should work to transfer the electronic info to another throttle. In other words will the throttles electronic info just be bypassed in the rear connections of the DS64 and not conflict the DS64 when using the switches? But hey maybe not.
Also if I can run this cable it will not be a loconet style as I only need one modular J12 jack with a six wire flat telephone cable as the telephone box side will be hardwired to correspond to the jack on the other end.
Any help appreciated.
Thanks.