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Author Topic: ASE50, Ethercon, shielded RJ45, odd little ducks  (Read 1904 times)

Dan Mortensen

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Re: ASE50, Ethercon, shielded RJ45, odd little ducks
« Reply #10 on: September 23, 2022, 03:14:10 PM »

In my experience it hasn't been that simple. The last time I attempted this the RWC refused to test any of my STP cables; in fact, the shield interfered with the testing so badly that the device claimed I had somehow wyed two of the pairs together!

-Russ

Interesting!!

That has not been my experience at all, and I've tested dozens of shielded cables with the RWC, if not more.

When I'm testing an Ethercon cable, which in my inventory are all STP, I use a Neutrik Ethercon coupler and have a short shielded RJ45 cable into the tester. That's true with the other tester, which I think is some kind of Ideal Networks device, although I might have that name wrong. There seems to be no tester that lets you test directly with Ethercons attached.

Weird that you had that problem.
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Brian Jojade

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Re: ASE50, Ethercon, shielded RJ45, odd little ducks
« Reply #11 on: September 23, 2022, 06:01:17 PM »

So, interesting tidbit. I just did a test on a couple of my X32 racks.  If you look at the AES50 jack, you will see that each side of the RJ45 connector has a grounding tab that should connect to the ground shield on your RJ45 connector.  If I measured continuity, the LEFT side of the jack measures continuity to the shell of the Ethercon ring in the jack, but for some odd reason, the right side of the jack does not.

This phenomenon was repeatable on 3 separate units, so it's not an anomaly of one unit itself.  The way a shielded ethernet cable can get plugged in, I can see it as quite possible that the RJ45 could shift in such a way that it doesn't make contact with the left side, but would make contact with the right side.  This could explain why not using Ethercon connectors is potentially an issue.

Since the pins are indeed connected, as long as your shielding connector is working on the RJ45, the ethercon shell is NOT going to be needed for connection, but because of the poor connector design, it's going to act as a backup.

Many of my cables use the Neutrik Convert-a-shell connector that has a removable ring so I can plug the cable directly into a standard RJ45 jack.  These rings are painted and do NOT make connection with the shield of the cable in any way shape or form.  I just tested the cable and my cables do seem to make a good ground connection even when wiggled.  This would explain why I have not had any issues with them.

Maybe at some point I'll open a unit up and see if there's a way to solder a jumper pin so both sides of the RJ45 jack ground conductor would be active, but I don't have time for that today.
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Brian Jojade

Dan Mortensen

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Re: ASE50, Ethercon, shielded RJ45, odd little ducks
« Reply #12 on: September 24, 2022, 03:14:53 PM »

So, interesting tidbit. I just did a test on a couple of my X32 racks.  If you look at the AES50 jack, you will see that each side of the RJ45 connector has a grounding tab that should connect to the ground shield on your RJ45 connector.  If I measured continuity, the LEFT side of the jack measures continuity to the shell of the Ethercon ring in the jack, but for some odd reason, the right side of the jack does not.

This phenomenon was repeatable on 3 separate units, so it's not an anomaly of one unit itself.  The way a shielded ethernet cable can get plugged in, I can see it as quite possible that the RJ45 could shift in such a way that it doesn't make contact with the left side, but would make contact with the right side.  This could explain why not using Ethercon connectors is potentially an issue.

Since the pins are indeed connected, as long as your shielding connector is working on the RJ45, the ethercon shell is NOT going to be needed for connection, but because of the poor connector design, it's going to act as a backup.

Many of my cables use the Neutrik Convert-a-shell connector that has a removable ring so I can plug the cable directly into a standard RJ45 jack.  These rings are painted and do NOT make connection with the shield of the cable in any way shape or form.  I just tested the cable and my cables do seem to make a good ground connection even when wiggled.  This would explain why I have not had any issues with them.

Maybe at some point I'll open a unit up and see if there's a way to solder a jumper pin so both sides of the RJ45 jack ground conductor would be active, but I don't have time for that today.

That's good information, thanks for doing that!

Do you have a zapper to induce ESD into the system to see if your theory is true?
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Re: ASE50, Ethercon, shielded RJ45, odd little ducks
« Reply #12 on: September 24, 2022, 03:14:53 PM »


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