Extend Inverter Remote with Phone Cord?

Yes you can
If worried about reversed wires, buy a coupler used for connecting two cords together
Use the OEM cord along with the extension
Phone cords are wired, straight through, inverter cords should be the same
Reversed aka swapped wires are used in rsc233 serial connections, not normal handset cords

It would not make any difference if you use the complete cord where the wires are or what colors they would be. As long and the say left one ends up as the left one on the other end. My unit used a 6 pin cord, does yours or is it a 4 pin.I had a hard time getting a 6 pin cord and a retired AT&T guy made 1 for me.

Merry Christmas.

It's just a switch so you can always just cut it and splice in more wire. However, I had pesky intermittent problems with mine when I didn't use the same pair. It turns out that the logic is susceptible to noise, esp. with longer runs. Changed to same twisted pair and all was good. Also, be mindful of routing near any high current 12 volt lines (keep crossing perpendicular when possible).

Steve

Thanks for the info! Based on that, I checked the actual jacks on my two remotes.

My Vector 2000w inverter has a wider sort of jack on the end of its remote's wire with 8 copper bars, but only the 4 middle ones have actual wires going to them (see-through plastic jack) This is the remote I want to extend.

My Xantrex 1000w inverter remote has a "normal" width jack with 6 copper bars and all 6 have wires to them.

I have a collection of phone wires and connectors. Some connectors have 2 copper bars and others have 4. Some of the "2s" are normal width and some are narrower for those phones that have handsets on their own wires.

With that wide jack on the Vector but 4 wires, it looks like I will have to cut the remote's wires and "insert" a 4-wire extension with the jacks cut off each end, being sure to connect the right wires to each other?

Communication cord----The ends when held side by side the color code will be the same
PHONE cord, when the ends are held side by side the color code will be reversed.
Just cut one end of your existing PHONE cord and attach a new end that is color coded the same, now you have a communication cord.
AS you found out, there are 4 wire phone type communication cords and 6 wire phone type communication cords. They are not interchangeable. AND a 4 might go in the 6 wire receptacle but will not attach correctly. The wire pins will not be lined up correctly. Doug

That 8 pin jack is a RJ45 typically used for computer Ethernet connections
The 6 pin and 4 pin connections are RJ12/11 connectors - typically phone system stuff but not always

There are many many versions/variations of all of the above connectors/cables - BE VERY CAREFUL connecting things without the proper cable, moist but NOT all are straight through - Magic smoke could easily result

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....

Suggest you do a Google search for the proper wiring before extending with any off the wall cable

Cat 5 cable...either net aka LAN networking
Use the OEM cable and a coupler with a longer cable
Using OEM cable insures wire polarity, coupler simply extends the wire

I have some Ethernet cables and an end to end connector for their jacks to make a longer Ethernet wire. The jacks do indeed have the 8 bars but all 8 have wires.

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 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.

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.