zaphod Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 I want to hide a long IR cable that I have in my bedroom that sends IR to an older Hunter Douglas blind IR receiver. Currently the cable runs along my baseboard and is visible. I have figured out a path to run it through the wall. What type of cabling should I use for this - which is really just making a longer analog IR cable? I could use Cat-5 but that seems like a bit of a waste. I could use speaker wire, or other phone wire, but I don't have any long spools of phone wire. Does it make sense to just use the cheapest, or whatever you have lying around? What's the recommended wire for this use, and the best termination to use on a keystone wall plate? I know that I could use something like Z2IR or Wifi2IR, but I just want to use old-school analog wiring in this instance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyknight Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 Honestly, any 2 conductor will do fine. If you're looking to do a baseboard run, I would suggest z-wire (security wire) - if you can find it some old 2 conductor stuff may be around, but even the 4 conductor is much smaller than CAT cable. I mean, future proof, CAT is the smart choice, but I get what you're trying to do here. As for termination, all depends on how clean you want/need it. IR keystones aplenty out there, likely the nicest option (there's punch downs for CAT, but there's plenty of clip/screw in types as well) that goes to a standard 3.5mm, which you can then plug in a regular IR pre-made. Some B-connectors will last longer than the wire too though, so if it's all hidden....could even just push it past a brush plate or even an empty keystone hole. For clients, if we use a direct cable vs a video baluns with it built-in, we usually do a standard CAT keystone, and terminate an IR wire to the RJ45 end, but that is because we always run CAT, and we always have CAT keystones and RJ45 aplenty. Short version for your scenario: Z-Wire and a screw down 3.5mm keystone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaphod Posted October 26, 2020 Author Share Posted October 26, 2020 I am doing some other Cat-5 at the same time so I ordered a bunch of RJ-45 keystone coupler jacks. Any reason why you prefer punch downs rather than couplers? Couplers seem useful if you ever want to join together two Cat-5 cables. So I will terminate either end of the Cat-5 cables with RJ-45 jacks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyknight Posted October 27, 2020 Share Posted October 27, 2020 Cost, and the fact that it's two more connections points that could be failure points. I'm not saying NOT to use them as such, but from my perspective, doing hundreds of them, it doesn't make sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crustyloafer Posted October 27, 2020 Share Posted October 27, 2020 Punch down couplers are definitely more reliable, RJ45 couplers can get knocked and misaligned and drop connectively on one of more pins on occasions. If I was ever joining/extending a CAT cable where reliability of connection was vital and future access to the joint location would not be possible or at least not easy I would use a punch down couplers every time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackfiveo1 Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 I know this is a total Hi-Jack of the thread, but I have an IR on my bedroom TV, controlled from my 6x6HDMI matrix. I have been wanting to see if I can get the IR codes for my 1. Vornado Fan 2. Chillipad sleep chillers. To automate turning these on/off. The IR sender thats on my TV "probably" has a clear shot to all these units. Could I leverage the IR sender thats already tapped to my TV for control of my fan/chillers? Thinking about this more, it should work, if i can send the IR command to IR OUT 3 from my HC-800, how would I find the IR codes anyone know the process? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lippavisual Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 If it’s an emitter, most likely will not work, especially if the other devices you want to control are further away from the tv. Youd be looking for a blaster and even those can be spotty at best. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyknight Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 z2io would be the answer there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fredsoneya Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 5 hours ago, blackfiveo1 said: I know this is a total Hi-Jack of the thread, but I have an IR on my bedroom TV, controlled from my 6x6HDMI matrix. I have been wanting to see if I can get the IR codes for my 1. Vornado Fan 2. Chillipad sleep chillers. To automate turning these on/off. The IR sender thats on my TV "probably" has a clear shot to all these units. Could I leverage the IR sender thats already tapped to my TV for control of my fan/chillers? Thinking about this more, it should work, if i can send the IR command to IR OUT 3 from my HC-800, how would I find the IR codes anyone know the process? You can create a driver by learning the IR codes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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