开云体育

Hi

I am currently using a Black Z21 with Loconet to connect 4 DR4088LN detection modules that are arranged in a U shape. ?The Z21 is physically located in the middle of the U and the cable goes up one side and then doubles all the way back before going up the other side; this results in an very long cable between the 2nd and 3rd modules (approx 40 feet).

I have seem some simple splitters on the market (RJ Cable splitters) which suggests that I could just split the signal coming out of the Z21 and take one cable down each side of the U. ?There are also some more expensive boxes made by Digikeijs.

?

Can someone please advise if I can just use a basic cable splitter as described above please?

Thankyou
--
Dave, Portland
Church Hope Model Railway
/?

I'd be pretty sure you can because all the connections are symetrical in the connector, and looped in the modules. The whole system is a common bus that serves all modules the same data at the same time.

Pins 3 and 4 carry data, pins 2 and 5 are ground, pin 1 is one of the DCC rail sync signals, and pin 6 is the other.

But the cost of building or buying a splitter may be more than a length of cable and 2 RJ11 crimps! Cable comes on 100m rolls, and crimps are cheap :-)

If your data is getting around the network now, just leave it.

Pete S.

Yes the splitters are all passive and you can fan out connections in as many directions as you have sockets on the splitter.
Pete S is very sensible in his answer re cost. I like it! Patch cables are really easy to make and very cheap unlike most other things in this hobby. Keep it simple and don't make changes for change sake.

There is one other consideration: If your layout is likely to grow with more LocoNet devices then your LocoNet patch cables will likely get very messy. Since most modules have 2 LocoNet sockets your daisy chain of cables can get unruly and you can end up with cables you might need to replace with different lengths. I bought a couple of 8 way splitters and each one feeds all the LocoNet devices in an area. That way 1 cable connects the areas. It also makes it easy to disconnect one module if needed. Just a thought.

Ok, so I have added a 5 way splitter to the output of my Z21 and at first all seemed well!

However, as traffic increased I have started to get occasional false positives on some feedbacks! ?I don’t use Railcom so these false feedbacks cause havoc with Itrain.?

The splitter is an “RR-CirKits, 1 to 5 LocoNet Splitter”. ?Any thoughts about why this should happen?

--
Dave, Portland
Church Hope Model Railway
/?

Hi,

?

You can't get false positives because of LocoNet. Only missing feedbacks can happen because of bad signal.

?

More likely either wire-length or track-section-length ( or both ;) ) are too long for the unfiltered DR4088LN-CS

?

Greets,

Karst

The first couple of times I wired my system really neatly with 4088LN-CS I had false positives all over the place. Itrain really didn't like that at all. I'd change the points over and the blocks around it would show occupied and Itrain just said "NO!" The (third time lucky) fix was to use the 4088's as close as possible to the point of utilisation (short cables) and to spread the wiring out to avoid cross talk. The wiring looks like spaghetti but works great. What I really wanted was a filter network to put on the front end or across the internal bridges to stop the interference.

Thankyou Karst and Pete for your comments.?

Is it the track bus wiring or the Loconet cable itself that causes the problem with interference ?please ??

Thankyou ?

--
Dave, Portland
Church Hope Model Railway
/?