Can a NCE cab bus be wired with 4 wire telephone cable or must a 6 wire cable be used (I mean with a procab system, I understand the powercab must use a 6 wire cable)? The NCE manual hints a 4 wire can be used. If a 4 wire cable is used will the RJ12 connector crimp to the cable easily/correctly? Thanks.
The NCE Zen Desk has this diagram, but I don't know why
The literature on their site and David Popps videos in MRVP suggest the the 8 wire CAT 5 cable offers superior transmission.
Pretty sure you can buy Cat 5 cable by the foot and a crimping tool at Home Depot. Not as cheap as the drawer full of phone cables you have at home but not the end of the world either.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
The cabbus requires 4 wires: power and rs-485. The PowerCab requires 6 because it provides track power.
you can use 4-wire cable with a 6-wire RJ-12 connector. center the 4 wires in the connector, leaving the outside pins unoccupied. If you're using cable with twisted pairs, use one pair for the middle pair in the connector carrying the rs-485 signal.
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
I make my own 4-wire control bus cables with my Power House Pro system. Here is what my manual says about 4-wire cables and 6-wire cables:
CAB BUS - 6 WIRE RJ-12 SOCKET
You may plug a cab directly into the cab bus jack or a cab bus cable may be used to connect to additional UTP connector panels around the layout.
CONTROL BUS - 4 WIRE RJ-H SOCKET
Connect the 4 pin cable from this socket to the first Power Station. This is the low level DCC signal that will be amplified by the power booster(s).
I see no mention of 4-wire cab bus cables in my manual.
Rich
Alton Junction
It's a 6 pin connector but only 4 wires are used in the cab bus. The other 2 are unused, except for the PowerCab.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
BigDaddy The NCE Zen Desk has this diagram, but I don't know why The literature on their site and David Popps videos in MRVP suggest the the 8 wire CAT 5 cable offers superior transmission. Pretty sure you can buy Cat 5 cable by the foot and a crimping tool at Home Depot. Not as cheap as the drawer full of phone cables you have at home but not the end of the world either.
At the speeds that the cab bus operates, there's not such a huge advantage to Cat 5 cable. The main reason to use Cat 5 with NCE is to double up the power wires so there is less voltage drop over distance. See how that diagram links the power pins from the RJ12 to TWO wires in the RJ45?
NCE does have a version of the UTP that has the RJ12 on the front for the cabs and RJ45 on the back to run the under-layout wiring with 8 conductor wire. Generally only needed for really large layout though.
If using a lot of plu-in cabs, NCE and MRC both need extra power, just like Digitrax - something that isn't always made clear (MRC hides this pretty well). Doesn't matter how power efficient your cab is, a hundred milliamps here and there quickly adds up, and drags the voltage down, especially since it comes over the thin phone cable.
rrinker It's a 6 pin connector but only 4 wires are used in the cab bus. The other 2 are unused, except for the PowerCab.
rrinkerThe main reason to use Cat 5 with NCE is to double up the power wires so there is less voltage drop over distance. See how that diagram links the power pins from the RJ12 to TWO wires in the RJ45?
That makes sense.
The videos I referred to in MVRP are;
Installing multiple cabs
Adding a smart booster
They require a subscription
Karle note in Greg's diagram, the connectors are upside down between right and left side. There is a name for that, it escapes me at the moment.
Straight through, or data wiring. If both tabs were up, that would be crossover or phone wiring.
I probably watched that Smart Booster video a while ago. I still think calling it the "Smart Booster" was a bit of a silly name - when using the Smart Booster with a PowerCab, the SMart Booster isn;t just the booster, it's a full command station. The command station feature of the PowerCab is no longer used, which means you can freely unplug it and move it to another panel. If you tried that with JUST the PowerCab, the entire layout would stop when you unplugged the PowerCab.
The only thing the Smart Booster doesn't have is a program track. For that, you use the special panel that came with the PowerCab, and the wall wart power supply it came with, connected to an isolated section of track, and continue to program locos the same way you did before acquiring the Smart Booster.
There's no RJ45 8 pin sockets on the Smart Booster, so I'm not sure where Cat 5 cable would come in. Using it with 6 pin connectors and just leaving 2 wires hanging outside the connector (or cut off) isn't really a great idea, it's hard to get a good crimp with extra wires getting in the way, and in generally it will buy you nothing especially with the size of layout that would typically be using a Smart Booster. Rather than jury-rigging connections, if you really want to use Cat 5 cabling, I would recommend getting the RJ45 UTP panels from NCE and using those. They have a 6 pin connector as well, so they act as the interface between the 6 pin on the command station and using RJ45 to interconnect all the additional panels. Usuaully, larger NCE layouts are all wireless, so it's not an issue.
rrinker There's no RJ45 8 pin sockets on the Smart Booster, so I'm not sure where Cat 5 cable would come in.
David P made a point of saying the first cable from the booster to a UTP panel needs to be the flat cable.
i thought the rational for making UTPs with RJ-45 connectors is because ethernet cables with RJ-45 plugs are more common and less expensive. RJ-45 connectors may also be easier to find and less $$.
not sure of any advantage of using a "flat" cable.
Because that's what they specify? People have had rather odd behavior when they tried to use 'superior' Cat5 or better Ethernet cable in place of the specified flat 6 wire cable specified for Digitrax Loconet. Even ehen they get the pairing right. You might think it really should work better - again so long as you got the pairing correct, since Loconet is a faster peer to peer network and doesn;t even use differential signaling, but it seems to cause issues.
Since the cab bus is RS485, it uses differential signaling which is already more noise immune than a single-ended signal. If NCE says flat cable is plenty adequate, then I believe them.
MRC's selling point is that Etheret cables are more easily available. Certainly true, if you don't mind overpaying for them, you can find then anywhere. 6p6c and flat 6 conductor cable generally require buying from a more specialized supplier - they USED to have these things in Lowes and HD, but no longer. You CAN however buy pre-made flat 6 conductor cables from various suppliers - and they even come in the proper 'data' configuration. Monoprice is my usual go-to for such things - and their Ethernet cables are a lot cheaper than the ones you find in the big box stores too. I have a good supply of ends and I have a part spool of cable as well as a box full of 6p6c cables I salvaged from work. They are all phone wired, sicne they came from our old phone system, but all I have to do it cut one end off and crimp ona new one in proper orientation.
I will note that the interconnects for my DIY electroncis are for the most part all RJ45 cables. Just because they are convenient. Just enough wires for a dual head 3 light Type G signal, too. (I'm keeping mine simple, one IO pin, one LED. No multiplexing or anything.)
Thanks all for the answers. I tried to crimp the RJ12 connector (which is a 6 wire termination) on a 4 wire flat phone cable and then tested it between UTP panels. On the first attempt it did not work. After careful examination I found I did not properly center the connector on the cable. I cut it off and recrimped on a new termination, this time carefully looking at the end of the connector under magnification. Under magnification (optivisor)I found you can see the end of the wires to check that the connector has the 4 wires properly centered in the connector. Retested it on the bus, and it worked.
If one uses 6 conductor cable the cable fills the width of the connector and so auto-centers, so why use 4 wire you might ask? Two reasons for me: first, 6 wire flat tele. Cable is getting harder to find and relatively expensive even on-line v. Just a few years ago when one could find it at Lowe’s and other big box stores. However 4 wire cable is cheap and readily available both on-line and locally. One wonders how long that will be true however with folks ditching their land lines.