pigtail orientation?

[penguineer]

Hi all,

This may be a rather dumb question, and I'm sure I have seen it asked before(and I have searched)......

Which end of a plug set is best for the controller?

I have enough of the Ray Wu moulded plug sets for all of my controllers and lights - the idea is to make everything as plug-and-pray as possible. So before I get into screwing/crimping/soldering a couple of hundred connections I have to decide on which is the best way round.

Female end(with the screw thread) attached to the controllers and the make end(with the screw-collar) on the light strings? Or the other way around?

I have a few screw caps to blank-off unused controller connections/channels so I was thinking the female ends on the controllers as I could blank them off sanely, unused lights just get taken out of the yard........

Plug sets:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/10-pairs-2-Core-White-Waterproof-pigtail-20cm-long-each-male-and-female-13-5mm-diameter/630889330.html

End-caps:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/plastic-end-cap-for-the-13-5mm-white-waterproof-pigtail/813548245.html

Any other thoughts?

Cheers!

 

[burner]

Doesn't really matter which way you orient them, but it's always best to stick to the same standard across the board. With my setup, the screw tail end always starts the string/strip and then always ends with the collar. Therefore as you first suggested, from the controller all tail have the collar too. It makes it easier to stick to the one standard, and your extension leads should follow the same idea.

 

[battle79]

As an electrician, I would always put the female end on the controller.
That way even if you don't cap the end, their is no way to accidently short out the wires in the connector with anything else.

Cheers,
Rowan

 

[penguineer]

Ahhhhh - I see......that makes sense, and matches the setup with the 240V........

Main idea is to standardise before assembling half of the units and then deciding to change and redo the whole lot.......

Cheers!

 

[David_AVD]

Females on outputs, males on inputs.

 

[Superman]

 

[DeeJai]

 

[fasteddy]

The reason you put the female plugs on the controller is because there is no exposed pins. This is why the element will have the male as it doesnt have any power to worry about with exposed pins. This is the same standard as used with normal power points and plugging things in, a female socket where the power comes from and a male plug for the item thats being plugged in.

So always make the plugs coming from the controller the female.

 

[penguineer]

Cool - basic common sense stuff really!

Got all the controller-side/female connectors screwed or crimped into place, now have to get started on attaching the light-side/male connectors and lots of soldering!

As I'm using BigW strings I will be attaching the male connectors to the wire where the 8-way controller has been cut off. Due to the way I arrange my lights(bundled/packed together) the two channels on each string will be connected together.

The soldered wires will be covered with heat-shrink and then a larger heatshrink over the top of that, either shrunk or cable-tied to reduce any strain on the solder joints.

Thanks for the advice guys!

Cheers!

 

[Timon]

I pressed Ray every couple of week about getting caps made and he pushed the manufacture until we finally got them. The 13.5mm caps came first and the 15mm caps were just releases a few weeks ago.


The cap ONLY fits the female connector which should alway be on the source side, think about you wall outlet which of course you would not every want to have exposed pins.