Cabling for Radar Plugin

[Squanderbucks]

Looking at the OpenCPN Radar Scanner Interface diagram for a setup with chartplotter included it shows 5 LAN cables in the diagram. My understanding is not all are the same type of cables - ie Straight Thru or Crossover.

The cables that connect to the Ethernet Switch are Straight Thru
and the cables exiting the Amphenols are Crossovers. Correct?

What type of Crossovers are they? What is the color sequence of the ends on the Crossovers?

The one to/ from the Radar Scanner is just the Garmin supplied cable so no issue. But the one to/from the Chartplotter neds to be made up or purchased. This is the one I need to know how to setup.
Thanks

[Squanderbucks]

Here are a couple of my dilemmas: 1. Radar LAN cable will not plug into the Amphenol Connector directly and I don't want to cut off the factory connector to the Radar so I can go back if not satisfied with outcome. Cable from Radar that would have normally plugged into the Plotter is a Crossover Cable. So does everything after that including the cable from the second Amphenol all just become Straight Thru Cables?

I bought a Garmin Double Female LAN cable connector that has sealed screw caps on each end - I was going to connect one end to the Radar cable and use a Straight thru patch cable to hook into the Amphenol.

Have I got this right?

[nohal]

Is there a hub or switch? All cables straight.

Direct connection between radar (or any other device) and PC? Crossover cable.

In reality, as nowadays pretty much all Ethernet adapters you can find in computers support auto-MDIX, it actually does not matter if you use wrong cable.

[wholybee]

Please google building Ethernet cables. Even though they are "Straight though" they are twisted pairs. It is important that the pairs are on correct pins, and just wiring straight through can create reliability issues. There are 2 standard color schemes 568A and 568B. You can use either, as long as both ends of the cable are the same.

"Crossover" Crosses the TX and RX pairs from one end to the other of the cable. You can google the correct schemes for those as well.

Most devices, switches and computers etc. are auto sensing/switching and it doesn't matter if you use a straight or crossover cable. The correct cable _might_ matter for the radar dome and chartplotter, I'm not sure on that. But if the other end of the cable is a standard ethernet switch then it doesn't matter.

[Squanderbucks]

Thanks.
I went through the process of hooking this up a couple of years ago and something did not work and the Garmin chartplotter locked up and I had a time getting it up and running again. Needless to say I have been hesitant to try again but have decided the results may be worth it fore my setup. The GPSMap screens (there ate two) are small to moderate - 7 and 10 inchers. It would be nice to run the Garmins with just the nav and engine data and use my larger PC screen to display the Radar image at more than double the size.

Primary 10 inch plotter and PC on the bridge and the 7 inch chartplotter and a monitor setup to show a duplicate of the one on the bridge. But the 7 inch is pretty worthless to try and use with split screen of Chart and other side as Radar - both pretty small.
Offloading the Radar to the PC seems ideal.

One last question: I assume the network switch needs to be powered up regardless of running the PC or not once this change over is done. That is - once setup to "share" the radar through the net switch it requires the switch to always be powered up.
Or will the data just pass through even an unpowered switch and only be needed if the PC wants access to the radar data?
Thanks again

[nohal]

Ethernet switch or hub are active network elements, they need electric energy to "do something".