dcc loconet cable

[Scottew7]

Maybe dumb question, Can I use phone cord for the loconet cable fom my command st. to my up5 digitrax? Or where can i get the cable? Thanks

 

[diburning]

No. Phone cord has 4 pins while Loconet uses 6 pins. You'll have to buy custom crimped cables or the older cables made by Atlas. You can try buying cables elsewhere, but beware, they are most likely for non-DCC use and have the wires on one end reversed.

 

[CSX Robert]

That depends, some phone cord does have 6 wires, just be sure to get phone cord thay specifically says 6-wire or 3-line. Something to note, however, is that regular phone cord will reverse the pins. That won't matter with UP5s and throttles, but it will if you ever add boosters(there may be other loconet devices that it would affect as well, but again, if you are just using it for throttles it will work fine).

 

[diburning]

Actually, I think it does matter for throttles, but if you have the knowledge, you can always clip one connector off and crimp on a new one.

 

[bnsf971]

Actually, I think it does matter for throttles, but if you have the knowledge, you can always clip one connector off and crimp on a new one.

I use a 6 conductor phone wire on one of my layouts, with my Digitrax UT4 throttle, with no trouble. My HO layout uses a regular loconet cable, also with no trouble.

 

[CSX Robert]

Actually, I think it does matter for throttles...

Nope, it doesn't. Pins 3 and 4 (Loconet Data) are common with each other, so they can be swapped. Pins 2 and 5(Ground) are common with each other so they can be swapped. Pins 1 and 6 (Railsync) are low current copies of the track bus. The only thing that the throttles use Railsync for is power, so if they are swapped it does not affect the throttle. Swapping Railsync will affect boosters because it will swap their phase, and I think there are other devices that depend on the critical timing of Railsync(such as Transponding detectors) that would be affected by swapping Railsync.