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Posted By: Lorena Catalan USB female to a 4P4C male outlet - 06/16/14 04:50 PM
Originally Posted by Arthur P. Bloom
Welcome! We're here to help!

There is no such thing as an "RJ9" in our industry.

With that said, please Google the term "RJ9" and you will get a half-million or so hits. Many of them offer adapters of the type you seek.

After you get what you need, and if you want to join us in learning more about the Registered Jack program, please come back and we'll do what we love best: teaching new members all about telephony.

Here's the first lesson: the male plug at the end of a handset cord, and the mating female connector, each with 4 conductors in a modular form factor, are officially called "4P4C" (4 position 4 contact). The "RJ" designations refer to a federally-mandated program that codifies direct connectivity between telephone equipment and the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network.) Since headsets do not, directly, connect to the PSTN, they do not use "RJ" plugs or connectors.

C L I C K
So I did google RJ9 and 4P4C and I still did not get what I want which is a USB female connector (connected?) to a 4P4C male outlet, now I'm starting to think this is not possible. Care to clarify?
Posted By: jknichols Re: USB female to a 4P4C male outlet - 06/16/14 05:09 PM
I would love to hear the application that uses both 4P4C connectors and USB connectors. My guess is that nothing is available off the shelf, but I'm sure there are custom cable makers that could cobble one together for you.

This strikes me as adapting between headphone plugs and AC Power plugs so you can use a standard extension cord as a long headphone extension - it would work, but heaven help the guy who is wearing said headphones when the far end of the cord gets plugged into a power outlet! eek
Posted By: Lorena Catalan Re: USB female to a 4P4C male outlet - 06/16/14 06:34 PM
Originally Posted by jknichols
I would love to hear the application that uses both 4P4C connectors and USB connectors. My guess is that nothing is available off the shelf, but I'm sure there are custom cable makers that could cobble one together for you.

This strikes me as adapting between headphone plugs and AC Power plugs so you can use a standard extension cord as a long headphone extension - it would work, but heaven help the guy who is wearing said headphones when the far end of the cord gets plugged into a power outlet! eek


Sorry I really aren't that tec savvy. So most of that answer makes no sense to me and is not really an app; I want to connect a USB male headset outlet to the female usb and then said adapter(?) with a 4P4C male outlet connected to my plantronics headset telephone s11. Does that make sense?
Posted By: hbiss Re: USB female to a 4P4C male outlet - 06/16/14 09:25 PM
The 4P4C and the USB are two completely different animals. USB stands for Universal Serial Bus and that 4P4C plug is analog. So even if you could get a cable made up with a USB on one end and a 4P4C on the other it would be like mating a cat with a dog. Ain't gonna work.

That said, the USB connector is also used as a power connector for many devices and in that application it can only be used to convey power, not data. So those cables may have a different connector on the opposite end, but if it's not some kind of USB or at least designed for data it won't handle data.

-Hal
Posted By: Arthur P. Bloom Re: USB female to a 4P4C male outlet - 06/16/14 09:47 PM
Take a spare handset cord and a spare USB cord, cut one end off of each, and make whatever splice you think you need. Use a very small soldering iron, rosin core solder, and slide a piece of heat-shrink tubing over one side before making the splice. Then pull the heat shrink over the splice, apply a little heat from the soldering iron, and voila.
Posted By: jknichols Re: USB female to a 4P4C male outlet - 06/17/14 01:55 PM
Originally Posted by Arthur P. Bloom
... make whatever splice you think you need. ....

Only one logical splice sequence - take your ohmmeter or continuity tester and trace the left hand pin on both cables, splice them together, then the second pin from the left, etc. until you've spliced the right hand pins together. It still ain't gonna' work for the OP's question however.

I forgot about some of the oddball power cable that pull 5 volts from a USB port when I asked about her application.

I have seen some "black boxes" that will let you use an analog headset on a computer via USB, but have not found anything via a quick Google search that does the opposite - might be a question for Plantronics. As Hal said, this is not a simple wiring adapter, but requires some kind of electronics to convert one type of signal to the other. The electronics will require power from somewhere - in the case of analog headset connected to a computer, the power would come from the USB jack on the computer.
To power a USB headset from an analog phone, you are going to need a battery (which will wear out at the worst time) or one more wall-wart plug in transformer.
Posted By: grich Re: USB female to a 4P4C male outlet - 06/17/14 05:52 PM
Originally Posted by Lorena Catalan
...connected to my plantronics headset telephone s11. Does that make sense?

You can't just build an adapter...as Hal said, there needs to be some electronics in the middle to convert analog voice into digital data for the USB port.

This just might work with your Plantronics headset.

USB adapter on eBay

Or, buy a new Plantronics USB Headset. I have one (Audio 400 DSP) and it's pretty nice.
Posted By: jknichols Re: USB female to a 4P4C male outlet - 06/18/14 02:19 PM
grich, Lorena's terminology makes it confusing, but as I begin to understand it, I believe she already has a "pretty nice" USB headset, and is trying to use it with an older analog headset controller. The USB adapter that you linked to, as well as all the ones I found via Google, do the opposite - let you use an older analog headset in a PC setup.
Posted By: grich Re: USB female to a 4P4C male outlet - 06/18/14 06:56 PM
She called out a Plantronics S11, which is an analog phone headset with 4P4C connectors...you can still buy them new for $50. I thought she wanted to connect that to a PC. If she wants to connect a USB headset to a S11 base, that isn't going to happen, like me suddenly becoming good-looking. smile
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