rj45 with network activity leds?

E

equate975

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 13, 2005
Messages
140
Does anyone know of like a rj45 wall jack that has network activity leds on it? Or is there a way to add them on?

I can't seem to find any info about it.
 
you mean 8P8C female with activity LEDs built in? yeah, plenty of network appliances have such activity LEDs, you know, like a switch, router, etc

as far as building them into a wall panel, no, unless you wire LEDs in from whatever appliance
 
well what I'm doing is building a router, and I need to move the network jacks to the front of the box. I was just gonna use some wall plates but I would like some activity lights on it so I can see when stuff goes down.
 
Here is an example of a 1 row, 4 jack w/LEDs RJ-45 modular jack:

http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=553-1354-ND
http://www.pulseeng.com/products/datasheets/J404.pdf

Also.
http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=151-1069-ND
http://media.digikey.com/pdf/Data Sheets/EDAC PDFs/A20 Series Drawing.pdf

Also,
(1000Gib) http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=553-1468-ND

Also,
(1000 Gib) http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=380-1112-ND

Basically, go to http://onlinecatalog.digikey.com/ and search for RJ45. I found relevant results on pages in the 300s.

A word of caution. I'm not confident that you can just wire these up to Ethernet (8 pins) and have them blink/flash. You may need to supply some outside circuitry. That is, I'm not confident that the LEDs are triggered and powered by the signals going over the ethernet.

Let me know if I can help any further.

I just rememered. http://www.mouser.com/ is another electronics supplier. They might have better prices, and they certainly have a nicer search interface.
 
PHiZ said:
A word of caution. I'm not confident that you can just wire these up to Ethernet (8 pins) and have them blink/flash. You may need to supply some outside circuitry. That is, I'm not confident that the LEDs are triggered and powered by the signals going over the ethernet.
Click to expand...

this. (but if you're building a router, it probably has said circuitry, so it should go)

and you realize RJ-45 is not the same as 8P8C, and that you aren't using RJ-45, right? there IS a difference :eek:
 
obobski said:
and you realize RJ-45 is not the same as 8P8C, and that you aren't using RJ-45, right? there IS a difference :eek:
Click to expand...

Yeah I know, I'm kinda old skewl lol.

anyways, I still have been reading up, and I don't know if it uses any tx/rx off the actual cat5 lines anywhere to make blinky light goodness.
 
If you're interested in a DIY solution, you could try identifying the Tx/Rx lines. Then, attach a transistor to them (with a large resistor in between). When the line was driven high by signal on the line, then the transistor would provide power to an LED. You'd likely have some issues with this setup at high data rates (component response time), so you might be better off adding some capacitence to widen the pulses of the led (which is switched on and off by the transistor).

Just my 0.02$
 
equate975 said:
Yeah I know, I'm kinda old skewl lol.

anyways, I still have been reading up, and I don't know if it uses any tx/rx off the actual cat5 lines anywhere to make blinky light goodness.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying that some of those won't trigger off the Ethernet signals. I just wanted to caution you against making the assumption that they will. If you do the legwork of digging through the datasheets and pulling the electrical schematics, I or someone else on the forum can look at them. I'm just too lazy to pore through the schematics for someone else's project.

So, pull the schematics, post some jpgs, and we'll see what happens.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top