Extend Inverter Remote with Phone Cord?

[BFL13]

Merry Xmas everyone. So the question is if the inverter remote on/off is on one of those phone line looking cords with the same sort of jack but is too short, how can you add phone line to make it long enough?

I have read here that the wires in the remote's line are reversed from phone ones. ? You can buy end to end connectors for phone line but how can you use those for this? Or what?

Thanks.

[BFL13]

Thanks, yes it should have worked. It's all put away now. I'll check next time when I get back to this project.

[SteveAE]

BFL,

The modem may work with either straight or crossed cable. Try testing continuity of original remote cable as I suggested earlier. It isn't hard, just take some time and good eyes. Your new cable (or extended cable...after it is all put together) needs to have the same continuity as the original.

Steve

[BFL13]

I ran the remote with the inverter and it works.

I have some Cat5 and a coupler. Proved they work-tested using modem and computer.

Unplugged the remote from the inverter and stuck it in one end of the coupler. Stuck Cat5 in the other end of the coupler and into the inverter. (noted the coupler's females are flipped)

No nothing. Swapped around end for end etc, nothing. So something else must be going on between the inverter and the remote button panel not accounted for--although being sure to use the right sort of wire was mentioned ISTR.

Tried the remote plugged into the inverter again and it works 🙂 So Mr Wiz is off the hook there.

Makes me wonder if doing an "insert" would not work either.

[SteveAE]

Excellent.
You will find that with some (very) careful continuity tests (a magnifying glass and small wires to probe with help), you can tell which pin connects where on the other end. Just map this out, make your new cable or extension, and retest to verify nothing changed.
Let us know how it works out.

Steve

[BFL13]

MrWizard wrote:
BFL
Your over thinking this
Remember a normal extension for power is has two d different ends make and female
A phone line or cat cable is usually two male ends
Both the equipment and the wall outlet are female
The wires are not crossed inside the cord
The cross is made because the two male connectors are upside down (flipped) from each other
This assures that pin 1 at the outlet is connected to pin 1 at the device

When using A double female phone coupler, to connect to cords it must flip the connections just like a cord, in order to recreate the female wall outlet and keep the connections aligned

Cat 5 cables follow the same protocol..
Dealing with two male ends, the ends have to be flipped, to maintain continuity from pins from one end to the other end

Thanks! I drew a picture and I can now see how with the ends flipped you can stick either end into a female pin socket. I can see how the coupler has to switch them back around inside it.

So it looks ok to use a coupler and just add some Cat5 instead of doing the insert work. 🙂

[MrWizard]

BFL
Your over thinking this
Remember a normal extension for power is has two d different ends male and female
A phone line or cat cable is usually two male ends
Both the equipment and the wall outlet are female
The wires are not crossed inside the cord
The cross is made because the two male connectors are upside down (flipped) from each other
This assures that pin 1 at the outlet is connected to pin 1 at the device

When using A double female phone coupler, to connect to cords it must flip the connections just like a cord, in order to recreate the female wall outlet and keep the connections aligned

Cat 5 cables follow the same protocol..
Dealing with two male ends, the ends have to be flipped, to maintain continuity from pins from one end to the other end

[BFL13]

Thanks for the update on interference.

I agree crimping on new ends is easy enough, but an insert of wire into the existing wire wouldn't use that.

There seems to be more to all this than meets the eye to just use a Cat5 extension, although it may be just me that is confused, so I am still thinking insert method.

[SteveAE]

SteveAE wrote:

BFL13 wrote:
the method least likely to get me in trouble is to cut the existing cable and do the four wire insert. Each of the four wires is a different colour, so "what could go wrong?"

Intermittent operation as I mentioned earlier. Tomorrow AM, I will check to see if I made notes on how I wired my Xantrex remote (when I cut and extended the cable)....if I made them.

Steve

I was mistaken.
It was the communications cable for the Xantrex charger (TrueCharge2) that I had problems with when I extended the cable to the remote. The inverter (Prowatt) was simply a new phone cable with crimped ends that I made up. Easy to do.

The remote is very convenient to have and I highly recommend it.

Steve

[time2roll]

Get a crimp tool for the ends. Phone cord and network cord is easy. Just match the color position and crimp a new end on the replacement wire.

After you do one you will go around the house and resize every cord to match the length needed vs the coils of extra wire tangled everywhere. It really is that simple.

[BFL13]

Thanks for the help. I have been looking at some of my Ethernet cables and I am really puzzled now.

The two ends have the same wire colours in order left to right when looking at them the same way from top or bottom. So they are reversed. But it doesn't matter which end you stick in the modem or computer! Driving me nuts. I don't know what happens inside an end to end coupler. Guess it doesn't matter, no idea.

The way I would do an "insert" would be to make sure the same wires in the remote are rejoined/ meet up so whatever is going on reversed or not from one end to the other of the remote's cable, it would still be the same way with the insert.

I also see that different Cat5 cables have different colours going left to right so there is no code for that it seems.

This may be more trouble than it is worth! All I want is to get the remote to where the microwave is at the back of the trailer. The inverter is up front with the batteries. Now the remote is mounted inside the trailer but about half way, so you have to walk over to turn the inverter on when wanting to use the MW and then back to turn it off. So it would be handy to have the remote right there beside the MW.

Maybe I should go for one of those remotes like you can get to turn on a ceiling fan since I am getting so lazy 🙂

[SteveAE]

BFL13 wrote:
the method least likely to get me in trouble is to cut the existing cable and do the four wire insert. Each of the four wires is a different colour, so "what could go wrong?"

Intermittent operation as I mentioned earlier. Tomorrow AM, I will check to see if I made notes on how I wired my Xantrex remote (when I cut and extended the cable)....if I made them.

Steve

[BFL13]

There was a caution above that Ethernet wires have cross-over, which seems to contradict the straight through advice on that.

"For example the Iota DS series uses the RJ11 connection with a special crossed cable *****(not the typical crossover Ethernet cable swapped connections******* but a unique cross over for only their equipment) for the IQ4 - do not reverse the connection...."

It sounds like all this crossing-over and pairing business means the method least likely to get me in trouble is to cut the existing cable and do the four wire insert. Each of the four wires is a different colour, so "what could go wrong?" 😞

Very educational as always. Thanks everybody.

[DrewE]

BFL13 wrote:
The Vector's 8 bar jack has four wires. I am not clear if it is safe to use the end to end 8 bar coupler and an 8-wire Ethernet cable extension. Will the 4 Vector wires meet up all along the way to the correct inverter's socket bars? Can the two outside bars each side with no wires become "live" somehow and light up the unused bars inside the Vector socket doing who knows what in there?

It seems like it should work.

I guess the four wires on the Vector must be two for the remote's green on/off light and the other two are for its red alarm light. Can't think what the extra two wires on the Xantrex are for.

If there's nothing connecting to the extra wires, then they're not connected to anything... 😉

It's not a problem to have extra unused conductors; it's the same as plugging a two-prong AC appliance into a three-prong extension cord.

[DrewE]

If you want to create your own cables (to get them exactly the right length or whatever), the tools and supplies to crimp the connectors are readily available and not too expensive and not really difficult to use. Home Depot/Lowes have them, for instance, and at pretty affordable prices.

Basically, you neatly trim the outer sheath off the Cat-5 or whatever wire, unsplay the individual wires and fan them out in the proper order, trim them evenly to length, and stuff them in their channels in the connector. Once everything is arranged neatly and properly, the connector is clipped into the crimper tool head, the handles pushed, and Bob's your uncle.

Cat-5 and similar twisted pair wire does have separate color-coded pairs of wires, usually one solid and one striped of the same color. For making a cable for a remote or something it doesn't matter much which pair is used where, but it may be important to keep paired wires paired, particularly for a long cable. For the 8 pin RJ45 connectors, generally the leftmost pins are a pair, the rightmost pins are a pair, the center two pins are a pair, and the leftover pins (numbers 3 and 6) are the last pair. For four-pin RJ11 connectors, the center two are a pair and the outer two are a pair.

For a manufacturer-specific cable, they can arrange things however they want, so carefully scrutinizing the existing cable and/or checking it with an ohmmeter or continuity tester to divine its wiring is necessary.