Saturday at NAMM - Live Blog

Like I said, I don't know and don't care if the "power pair" is twisted. But IF I were going to use it for power,
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Please explain how using single pair cable and not wiring pins4&5 will ever cause my DMX to "break." I can only think of three (highly unlikely) instances:
1. I require the talkback feature of long-defunct Entertainment Technology products. Yeah, right.
2. I'm using a HogII rigger's remote. Not in the last fourteen years.
3. I'm using an early Avolites Pearl and/or have cheater break-in/-outs to access a 2nd universe. As a standard practice, I've already long run a second cable as a spare, marked with yellow tape.

If I remember correctly Colin Waters said that having the two twisted pairs results in some minor additional stability to the signal. Note: this conversation was in the middle of NAMM, with a freaking bright blinder light in the GLP booth assaulting us... but that's how I remember what he said.
 
However, it would be nice to know via obvious marking that pins 4 & 5 are NC.
At first I agreed with you, but upon further cerebral activity...
Why would it be "nice to know"? Are you going to treat it differently just because it's missing a pair? That's...I don't know, but something that ends in "-acist."

If one absolutely needed to know, one could read the cable and if it didn't say, look up the number and manufacturer. You'd probably have a connector apart in that time.
 
At first I agreed with you, but upon further cerebral activity...
Why would it be "nice to know"? Are you going to treat it differently just because it's missing a pair? That's...I don't know, but something that ends in "-acist."

If one absolutely needed to know, one could read the cable and if it didn't say, look up the number and manufacturer. You'd probably have a connector apart in that time.

This leads to another point in a conversation with Fred Morgenstern (Neutrik). They have done everything they can think of to make sure that a Neutrik PowerCon connector only makes contact one way and is as safe as possible. But you can't stop someone from wiring the plug wrong. Even worse, he hears some people are now wiring it wrong on purpose, using PowerCon connectors to send two positives and a negative through the cable. So there he is as the manufacturer who has labeled the plug positive, negative, and ground, but it's not being wired that way. So how can he make it safe? He's considered making plugs with a different color code and different labels so you know that the blue ones are standard wiring but the say yellow ones carry twice the power... but then some people might use the yellow ones wrong, or maybe send three positives and no ground! So you end up guessing the stupidity of another person's wiring.

So is it better to stay with the standard and ignore how people misuse your product Or should you embrace the fact that it will be misused and find a way to have alternate labeling for when it is misused? It's quite the problem. You know out there somewhere, there's got to be an insane theater where they are running DMX over orange extension cords with Edison to XLR adapters. It must exist...
 

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