PD Charge Wizard extension?

ve7prt wrote:

DrewE wrote:
I extended my PD remote cable by cutting it and splicing in a section of wire, in my case cat-5 network wire as that's what I had handy to work with. Any straight-through wired extension should work just as well.

I don't know offhand if it's a serial digital interface between the two or just two wires directly wired to the pushbutton switch and two for the LED indicator. If it's the latter, wire length and type are pretty much immaterial (at least within reason--miles of wire might pose problems). If it's the former, it's conceivable that the wire characteristics might matter somewhat, though it doesn't appear that they use anything at all special like twisted pair wire. For modest lengths, it's an academic concern anyway.

For people thinking of flush-mounting the remote: take note that the top and bottom of the remote pendant case (at least the current version of it) are rounded off, but the sides are cut pretty much square. The basic result is that cutting a basic rectangular hole in luan or whatever for it tends to make the gap at the top and bottom look bigger than at the sides. If you're not too much of a perfectionist, it doesn't really matter much. I suspect undercutting the top and bottom carefully would avoid this possible annoyance.

I did the same thing on the CW for my stick house system PD9145. I called PD first and the only caution they gave was to ensure I didn't cross any wires, but really any 3-conductor wire should work. I don't remember if the tech gave me a maximum length, but I only spliced in about 10ft cable, and it works perfectly.

Cheers!
Mike

I find this interesting because I too contacted them and asked for a longer cable and got a message back from engineering that is would cause EMI issues. I didn't try it so I asked Bestconverer and they said they have been begging for a longer cable too but they just won't do it. This was on the 4600 series which they now make a pendant for BTW with the correct connector.