Has anyone tried using a piece of cat5e, with RJ45 ends from the XP8 RS232 ports directly to the CT600.3 RS232 port (also RJ45)?

I assume if the pin config is the same it should work without any adaptors...

Can anyone confirm this for me???

Are you using 568A or 568B?? Does it matter?

If the cable is the straight through it doesn't matter if its a or b, it just needs to be the same on both. some units require the cable to be null, i know sonance 875 amps doand they actually say it in their instruction manual. I don't know B&K really though.

I think that the B&K needs it to be null, but don't quote me on that.

For the record, when using a CM232, I don't need a null adaptor to connect to the B&K... so I'm assuming it will be okay.

The BK's RJ45 jack is TX-Pin 5, RX - Pin 4, and ground on Pins 3and/or 6. So from the XP8 RJ45 jack Pin 6 (TX) needs to go to Pin 4 on the BK. Pin 5 (RX) on XP8 goes to Pin 5 on BK. And ground to ground.

If you are using the CM232 with the DB9 to RJ45 adapter provided with the CT to hook into the BK then yes you won't need a null modem because the adapter is pre-made fo the correct pin-out.

Thanks Josh.

My Bad for not checking the pin outs before asking.

Your Welcome.

But will wiring it up that way enable us to have two-way feedback when/if it's available?

Well...call me stupid.

I studied the documentation for the XP8 and the CT600.3.... trying to figure out the relative pins, and figure out how to put the RJ45 ends onto my cable, with the correct wire>pin on each end...

I couldn't make sense of it. Then I called B&K. The nice girl in tech support agreed with me that it was very difficult to know what was up.

My solution:

I used the RJ45>serial adaptors that ship with the XP8....
I mated those with the serial>RJ45 adaptors that came with the CT...and ran another piece of cat into the CT unit.

Works fine.

If someone can spell out the DEFINITIVE guide to connecting DIRECTLY from the XP8 to a B&K CT or HD unit...that would be cool.

What BK told you will work just fine. It took me awhile to figure it out myself. I wanted to keep it as clean as I could so just running a CAT5E from the XP8 to the BK would be the best. I believe the following is a pin out that will work.

Start with the XP8 RJ45 end. Terminate it standard Schedule B
(O/W, O, G/W, B, B/W, G, BR/W, BR)

On the BK end it gets a little confusing. Terminate it as follows
(O/W, O, B, G, B/W, G/W, BR/W, BR)

This should make sure that the XP8's TX (Pin 6) is connected to the BK's RX (Pin 4)
XP8's RX (Pin 5) is connected to BK's TX (Pin 5) and XP8 Ground 4 (Pin 4 ) is connected to BK's Ground (Pin 3)

All I'll add is to label that damn cable well lest you try to use it as a patch cable later!

Thanks Josh

I need to get the B&K stuff firmware up to date, and then put the units on the Network. Once I test that... I can use your solution.

I need to leave it the way I have it now (using the RJ45>serial adaptors) so that I can connect my laptop to the CT directly (using RSB>serial cable) to change settings on the B&K and also for the QuickTools software.

Once I get the CT and HD on the network, I should be able to change settings on both units over the LAN.