First off, I'd like to say that I'm new here and reading through most of these posts it seems the lot of you are probably the best resources to go to for help with my situation.

I had a customer come into my store today (I ran some of their ethernet cable a few months ago) and he hands me a cable that has a standard RJ 45 end on one side with a 4P4C (RJ 9 or whatever people want to call it) on the other. It is used for his cashlane system but the part I can't wrap my head around or figure out how to get to work is that the RJ45 has 5 (yes five) wires in it while the RJ9 has 4 wires.

The pin layout on the RJ45 is 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8 being terminated, and obviously all 4 are terminated on the other end. The kicker is that both pins 1 and 2 of the rj45 have continuity with pin 4 on the rj9, yet the rj9 only has one wire in the pin 4 slot. (The other three wires are straight through, no cross connectivity between any of them.) He needs another one of these cables because the company he purchased the cashlane from wil not send him another cable unless he purchases another cashlane for full retail.

Now I made a cable that tests the same for continuity as the one he has (I literally spliced in an individual piece of wire into the wire in pin 2 and terminated the end in the rj45 plug with the others in their spots.) So now pins 1 and 2 of the rj45 have continuity to pin 4 of the rj9 and the other three are in their respective slots with continuity as well. BUT, the cable doesn't work when he puts it into the system, is there something I did wrong, or some way of wiring this that I don't now about? Or easier yet, is there anywhere to buy this type of cable by itself without him having to pay a couple thousand for another cashlane system. Any help would he greatly appreciated, and I thank you in advance.

Is this an april fools joke? LOL
You are talking about 8P8C and 4P4C. Forget the RJ designations.
It's probably some kind of weird serial cable...

No, no joke, and sorry about the RJ designations...

What is a cashlane system? Google was not my friend on this.

If the old cable is expendable, then I would actually slice it open completely and look inside. Who knows what sort of hocus-pocus they might have brewed up in order to make the cable completely proprietary [and act as a hardware "key"]. It sounds like the cable is not expendable, however...

BTW, the RJ9 plug is used only on high performance digital doorbells. See this post.

Jim
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Speaking from a secure undisclosed location.

It's a point of sale system, in this case a rather high tech cash register. Touch screen, network interface, etc... Unfortunately the existing cable is not expendable (even though I did want so very badly to take it apart). They already have 4 machines, this one is for the 5th. The company says that they only send the cable with the system itself. He never received the cable with his 5th system and the manufacturer is simply being stubborn.

Put a wire map on the existing cable and see what you get and compare it to the one you made.

I think what throws everybody off is the title of your topic:

• 8P5C to 4P4C ???

8P5C

I'm not sure I know of very many 5C's
But as Bill states: Wire Map and you can't go wrong.

I noticed that after i made the post, I chalk it up to either a typo or a simple brain lapse on my part since that end has 5 wires. I just don't have permission (or at least I don't think I do) to change the thread title. So if a Mod or Admin could change the title to say 8P8C to 4P4C it would be greatly appreciated.

Are you saying that the customer bought a fifth unit, and it arrived without a cable? If this is true, then he is entitled to a refund. Most states have what they call a "Fitness of Merchantability" law, also known as "implied fitness for use." He should talk to his lawyer, unless he bought the fifth unit on ebay, in which case he is truly shafted.

It sure sounds like they are using the proprietary cable as a form of "hardware lock," hence their unwillingness to provide one.

Jim
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Speaking from a secure undisclosed location.

I changed the title as requested.

One other thing, if I am reading your post correctly, it sounds like you have two wires jammed into one slot on the modular plug? If so, this is a real no-no. Field installed modular plugs are a crap shoot on a good day, and they were never designed for this. If I am misunderstanding this, please forgive me.

Maybe you can have the existing cable x-rayed, and find out what they actually did inside? Who knows what evils lurk beneath that cable jacket - I have seen some crazy-a** stuff over the years, especially where [pseudo] "hardware locks" are concerned.

Jim
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Speaking from a secure undisclosed location.

His cable probably zener diodes within the sheathing. He bought proprietary equipment and now he wants something on the cheap! Guess it's to late to use "a rat chewed my cable" ruse!

justbill, thank you for changing the thread title.

Jim, I added a diagram to the bottom of this post to stop any confusion (I hope).

jwooten, that's the only thing I could think of but if there is a diode hidden in behind the sheathing that is a damn good job of hiding it. The sheathing was barely big enough to hold 4 wires and it goes straight into a bare plug. *shrug*

Here is a diagram I just threw together to quell any confusion...



Pins 1 and 2 on the 8P8C share continuity with pin for of the 4P4C but only the blue wire is in the 4P4C. The purple circle represents that I spliced in the red wire from pin one into the blue wire from pin 2.

I am just surprised that the manufacturer won't sell you a replacement cable...

It's a he said - she said situation. He said that he never had the cable, the company said they never ship without the cable and therefore won't send him the cable by itself. The crazy thing is, this guy would pay $100 for the cable if they wanted to charge him that much for it, but they just don't want to budge.

It is very common in serial communication ports to combine the frame ground (FG) and the signal ground (SG). That doesn't surprise me at all that this was done in this instance. I don't like this practice, but I digress.

It is also very possible to twist and tin these combined ground conductors together and form them into something that will work in a crimped modular plug. Comdial did this with the equivalent of speaker wire from their 'wall wart' power supplies for 'Solo II' phones. It can be done.

As to why your reconstruction of this cable working; I just can't say a thing. It sounds as if you have covered all of the bases. I'd focus upon improper crimps where conductors were either missed or they jumped over upon insertion.

I'm all over this one. Now give me one more hint and tell me what the individual colors are on the wire jacket. I mean, did you just choose some nice distinct Powerpoint colors or did the manufacturer use specific colors like black and yellow? That information could be really important.

When I look on the infomercial super-roadway for "cashlane" point-of-sale, I come up with this thread, and nothing else relevant.

Does this company even exist? Am I spelling it correctly? Was Jeff's first reaction correct - i.e., is this related to yesterday's date?

adapaw, please don't be offended - it's just that I find it hard to believe that a company that makes computerized POS systems would have absolutely no web presence whatsoever.

Again, is the spelling correct, or did they get bought out and the name changed?

I am truly vexed. More than usual.

Jim
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Speaking from a secure undisclosed location.

A couple of things:

1. I hope you are charging your client at least $100 to work on this problem. I get these cheapos with their odball problems all the time. If they had paid a fair price for stuff in the fist place, they would not have these oddball problems that they now want someone to fix fo free. Bottom line is that your professional time is worth money, and I hope you are not just giving it away (aka slavery and/or the poor house). If the client is not willing to pay a fair price then you should "ring it up" as no sale.

2. If this guy wasn't a cheapster, he would have his POS terminals furnished and installed by a local dealer and would not have this problem.

3. If he was buying from an authorized dealer, he would be able to get replacement parts. The guy who sold him this POS terminal probably won't furnish a replacement cable because he doesn't have any because he is not a regular dealer of this equipment.

4. Contact the manufacturer, who may or may not help you either with a pinout or a replacement cable.

5. I would follow up the suggestion that you test each conductor for diodes. Most inexpensive VOM meters contain a diode tester. If yours does not, then beg, borrow or steal a diode from Radio Shack or somewhere and put it in series with your continuity tester. I would also check for resistance. I would check for capacitance if I knew how. Anyone?

6. Your best advice is to just tell the guy you can't help him. There is no money to be made with this type. He is probably lying that the cable was left out when he bought the thing. Otherwise he would have returned it faster than a hot potatoe.

7. What is this cable supposed to be connecting? Standard Ethernet uses pins 1,2,3,6.

Guys, I think they got us, and got us good.

I suspect that "they" are the owners/admins...

Take a look at adapaws post count - it increase by one every time he posts in this thread. That ain't normal.

Jim
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Speaking from a secure undisclosed location.

Do yourself a favor and make a small converter box out of a 2 port surface mount box.

Put an 8p8c jack and a 6p4c or 6p6c jack in it

Do the cross connections in the box and use a 1 foot patch cord and a standard phone cord.

Keep in mind that phone cords reverse so wire it accordingly. Make sure it works with off the shelf cords to limit confusion down the road

Nope. The IP address does go to Ft. Worth and this isn't any existing member, at least with that IP address.

FYI your post count does go up each time you post.

Bill, my bad. I thought the post count worked differently.

I guess I just can't wrap my head around the fact that the only company found on the web called "cashlane" is an on-line consumer products discounter.

There is a company called "Cashline" in the Netherlands that makes POS systems. Their website boasts of a whopping 900 systems sold, and hasn't been updated since 2006.

A mysterious company indeed, this cashlane.

Jim
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Speaking from a secure undisclosed location.

My company can make that cable pretty easily.

Edit: never mind. OP stated that this cable doesn't work.

Can you find out from your customer the manufacture of the "cashlane" system? That might be of some help figuring out how to configure a cable.

I looked up "cashline" using Google. One search led me to casline.ca, which redirected me to DirectCash.net.

I got to thinking that someone from Texas saying "cashline" might sound like they are saying "cashlane" (sorry, that's this Californian's point of view).

At any rate, I'm guessing this machine was purchased through a secondary market supplier, who can't actually get the right cable.

Nice job on the diagram, by the way.

Justin

"Cash Lane" is just a catch-all term used in the POS industry, though it's used a lot more in Canada and Europe than in the good old U.S. of A.

Without actually looking it up, this cable reminds me of the Communications cable from certain Sharp POS systems. The inter-register communication line is RS-485, and this cable would plug in to the register at the 4P end, then plug into an RJ45 jack at the other end. It is a bit confusing, because it looks like you should be able to just plug it into an ethernet switch, but you can't. If this is, in fact, the cable I'm thinking of, there is an embedded diode so if you accidently plug it into an ethernet port you don't blow up the port on the register.

Anyway, the person probably thought they could buy another register on ePay and hook it up to an existing system. Oops.