How to make the cable that plugs into the computer and the Olsen 595 controller
Update: Stempile on the Christmas In Shirley Boards posted a link to Mouser.com that sells a DB25 to RJ45 adapter for less than $5.00 bucks. So you can either buy this adapter, or just make the cable yourself with the instructions below.
This article will explain how to make the cable that plugs into the printer port of your computer and then plugs into the "in" RJ45 jack on your Olsen 595 controller. The part we need is a universal DB25 male to male straight through cable that I picked up from Fry's Electronics for about $3 bucks.
I also picked up an RJ45 jack from Fry's Electronics for about $3.50. The picture is really blurry, but here it is:
First, cut off one end of the printer cable so it looks like this (ignore the exposed wires I am showing, the appropriate wires you need to locate are described below):
We need to locate 4 pins on the printer cable. Pins 1, 2, 14, and any pin from 18-25. How I did this was I took a multimeter and set it on the ohm setting.
You should notice that if you touch the red and black leads together you will get a reading. So what I did was I touched one of the leads to pin 1 on the printer cable and then touched the other lead to the exposed wires until I got a reading. I did this for all of the pin locations. These are the wire colors and the corresponding pins that were in my printer cable (I'm sure the color codes are standard so they should be the same for your printer cable):
Pin 1 was the solid black wire.
Pin 2 was the solid brown wire.
Pin 14 was the brown and black wire.
Pin 20 was the purple and black wire.
Now that we have located all of the necessary pins, we need to attach the corresponding wires from the printer cable to the RJ45 jack. The wires from the printer cable are too small to crimp down on the RJ45 jack, so I cut some thick wire I had laying around to about 6 inches in length and then crimped them into the RJ45 jack. You have to crimp the wires into specific pins on the RJ45 jack. Pins 3, 5, 7, and 8 are used on the RJ45 jack. So now that we have wires coming out of the RJ45 jack from the specific pins, we need to solder those wires to the appropriate wires from the printer cable. Pin 1 from the printer cable connects to pin 5 on the RJ45 jack. Pin 2 from the printer cable connects to pin 8 on the RJ45 jack. Pin 14 from the printer cable connects to pin 7 on the RJ45 jack. Any of the 18-25 pins from the printer cable connects to pin 3 on the RJ45 jack. Here is a picture of the RJ45 jack wires being soldered to the printer cable wires:
After everything was soldered, I tightly wrapped it all up with electrical tape to keep it securely held together. You don't want to wrap everything up together so all of the exposed wires touch each other. Instead, wrap each of the wires separately and then wrap them all together. Here is a picture of the finished product:
The cable is now complete. We just plug one end of the printer cable to the printer port on the computer. A standard cat-5 (or cat-6) Ethernet cable is plugged into the printer cable with the RJ45 jack and the other end of the Ethernet cable is plugged into the "in" jack of the Olsen 595 controller.
back to the Top
This article will explain how to make the cable that plugs into the printer port of your computer and then plugs into the "in" RJ45 jack on your Olsen 595 controller. The part we need is a universal DB25 male to male straight through cable that I picked up from Fry's Electronics for about $3 bucks.
I also picked up an RJ45 jack from Fry's Electronics for about $3.50. The picture is really blurry, but here it is:
First, cut off one end of the printer cable so it looks like this (ignore the exposed wires I am showing, the appropriate wires you need to locate are described below):
We need to locate 4 pins on the printer cable. Pins 1, 2, 14, and any pin from 18-25. How I did this was I took a multimeter and set it on the ohm setting.
You should notice that if you touch the red and black leads together you will get a reading. So what I did was I touched one of the leads to pin 1 on the printer cable and then touched the other lead to the exposed wires until I got a reading. I did this for all of the pin locations. These are the wire colors and the corresponding pins that were in my printer cable (I'm sure the color codes are standard so they should be the same for your printer cable):
Pin 1 was the solid black wire.
Pin 2 was the solid brown wire.
Pin 14 was the brown and black wire.
Pin 20 was the purple and black wire.
Now that we have located all of the necessary pins, we need to attach the corresponding wires from the printer cable to the RJ45 jack. The wires from the printer cable are too small to crimp down on the RJ45 jack, so I cut some thick wire I had laying around to about 6 inches in length and then crimped them into the RJ45 jack. You have to crimp the wires into specific pins on the RJ45 jack. Pins 3, 5, 7, and 8 are used on the RJ45 jack. So now that we have wires coming out of the RJ45 jack from the specific pins, we need to solder those wires to the appropriate wires from the printer cable. Pin 1 from the printer cable connects to pin 5 on the RJ45 jack. Pin 2 from the printer cable connects to pin 8 on the RJ45 jack. Pin 14 from the printer cable connects to pin 7 on the RJ45 jack. Any of the 18-25 pins from the printer cable connects to pin 3 on the RJ45 jack. Here is a picture of the RJ45 jack wires being soldered to the printer cable wires:
After everything was soldered, I tightly wrapped it all up with electrical tape to keep it securely held together. You don't want to wrap everything up together so all of the exposed wires touch each other. Instead, wrap each of the wires separately and then wrap them all together. Here is a picture of the finished product:
The cable is now complete. We just plug one end of the printer cable to the printer port on the computer. A standard cat-5 (or cat-6) Ethernet cable is plugged into the printer cable with the RJ45 jack and the other end of the Ethernet cable is plugged into the "in" jack of the Olsen 595 controller.
back to the Top
