Houston, we have a problem.
Just a minor one though really.
Last night I hooked up the first turnout to the punchdown block in the new wiring panel, went to throw a switch and….nothing. So, the troubleshooting began.
I eventually discovered that Controller Board #1 wasn’t even getting any current to the punchdown block, while Board #2 was. The difference between the two is the wiring used. For Board #1 I used the cable from RJ11 telephone cable I have, while Board #2 I used 26AWG wire I bought in individual spools.
Turns out the Telephone cable wiring has this plastic type shielding on it, and when punched down in the block all it does it get smooshed, instead of getting pierced and making contact like the other wire did.
My initial thought was to simply replace the telephone wire with another kind 4-pair wire that will punchdown correctly. I also have to replace the wiring from Board #1 to the punchdown block as well. To do this (easily) I have to remove the panel from the wall.
That’s when I started thinking. If I have to remove this panel later on *after* I punchdown all these turnout cables, it’s going to be a major PITA because when you punchdown a wire, it trims it. So there isn’t a lot of slack for multiple removals and punchdowns. Not to mention it takes a while to punchdown 64 tiny wires.
So… my new solution?
I’m going to remove the punchdown blocks and replace them with 16 RJ11-Keystone jacks. I’ll wire the boards directly to RJ11 jacks inside a dual-jack housing, this way I can simply plug in a turnout like I was plugging in a phone. This will make connections a lot easier to deal with, especially if I need to remove the panel in the future.
Before I go all gung-ho with this idea, I only ordered one set to test this out. I’ll be using my “good” cable for the Board to jack connection, and then the regular telephone cable for the panel-jack to turnout-jack connection. This should work out pretty well.
