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RJ45 cable into RJ50 jack NI9237

The NI9237 has RJ50 jacks

I plugged my loadcell with 4 wires, excitation into pins 6, 7, and signal into pins 2, 3 of an NI9949 Terminal Block

I used a RJ45 cable with 8-pin end (instead of RJ50) to connect between NI9949 and NI9237 jack (jack has 10 pins). It seems that everything is working.

 

My question is: Would I have any problem doing this? In what scenario I must have a RJ50 cable connecting NI9949 and NI9237.

Thank you

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Hello ngthai,

 

As you brought up, the RJ45 is 2 pins short of the full pinout of the RJ50. However, if you are only using the excitation and signal pins as you said, and they are successfully lining up, then you should be able to keep using the RJ45 cable as long as you do not add more to your configuration, since it does seem to be working now.

 

The concern would be that, if the RJ45 and RJ50 cables both have their pins evenly distributed across the connector, that pins would not perfectly line up, and there might be a risk of damaging connectors on the female end. In the best case scenario (which I believe is the actual case) that the pins are all center aligned and distributed by the same margin in each cable, then you just would not have access to the outside pair of pins (1&10), which on the 9237 are used for shunt calibration. 

 

If you have any additional concerns, I would recommend using the technically supported connector, if only for peace of mind.

 

Best,

 

Daniel

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Thank you.

Yes both RJ45 and RJ50 are centrally distributed. Pins 2 to 9 of RJ50 are perfectly lined up with the 8 pins on my RJ45.

 

I used RJ45 cable because:  NI only sells 2-m RJ50 cable. I need to use different length (9-in, 1-ft, 2-ft, and 3-ft) cable and I can easily find variable length RJ45 cable. In fact, I couldn't find variable length RJ50 cable anywhere in my online search.

 

So, If I'm not using Pins#1 and 10, and even if I'm going to damage the female ends of Pins #1 and #10, I should still be OK then?

Thank you so much

 

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ngthai,

 

While I do reiterate that this is not a technically supported configuration, as far as my knowledge extends, you should be fine with this setup.

 

Best,

 

Daniel

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