Hello, I was hoping for some guidance on the feasibility of a project. I would like to essentially build a switch or patch panel that essentially will connect any one series of wires to another. I will try to explain this as best I can, I imagine a series of wires A-Z in groups of 8 or 16 or whatever and a second series identical to the first. I would like to essentially bridge the connections between group 1 wires to group 2 wires with a button press (or possibly via wifi) and then change that say joining group 1 wires to group 3 wires. Is something like this do able? It is really nothing more than a switch but one that can handle a larger quantity of inputs and outputs with variable connections.
In a perfect world I would love to be able to modify this, sometimes a button press means joining wires 3,4,5 to wires 7,8,9 sometimes that button press means 2 groups of wires.
I see this working with a series of cat cables most generically, so at any one time the each individual wire will be joined to a single other wire, never split or anything like that. This is not going to handle internet or any packet processing so a network switch wouldn't fit the bill here.
Can anyone provide me a jumping off point for where to go with this? If this is at all unclear I will be happy to try to add any clarification.
Thank you!
Actually it hadn't quite occurred to me that it would matter, but it makes sense that it would! I would like this to act as a switch primarily for AV or other things that could be extended via cat (within the distance limitations) cables would always be joined to a corresponding cable on the other end, always usb to usb, vga>vga etc. That being said USB carries a dc voltage if I am remembering correctly in addition to an analog signal I think.
The real value of this for me would be that the series of inputs and outputs could be variable, today Cat input A and B could be VGA, tomorrow USB all the while I still have the option to route whatever input to output I choose.
I am certain something like this already exists, this certainly falls into the realm of a project for the sake of a project not convenience! It does look like a crosspoint switch is what I am describing, I found it interesting that this was initially managed by a series of blown and reconnected fuses.
It's pretty rare to mix different types of signals like that. USB and VGA have different plugs so you'd always be changing the plugs on each end if you changed the function of the wires.
Look up "KVM Switch" (keyboard, video, mouse.) That will switch VGA and USB and they already have all the nice connectors. Connecting one mouse to two computers is not often done - gamers and gold farmers do this sometimes. One computer to multiple VGA outputs is much more common = classroom type situation.
Or put it all onto an Ethernet local network and do the switching in the network. That's why networks exist.
I don't think I am explaining correctly, it's more of a digital patch panel. No splitting of wires will really occur. Most simply if I had 3 wires, A, B, and C, how would I go about telling wire A to connect to wire B and then tell it I now need it to connect to wire C or any combination in between?
Can you elaborate on this a bit Runaway Pancake? My understanding of Relays was that they were used to control a large voltage appliance using a smaller voltage from a switch. I am not sure if I am understanding how I would go about connecting a series of wires to a relay to then specify which wires I wanted to connected variably.
Well, a relay has switch contacts. There are relays rated for lots of current and for little.
If you can imagine doing what you describe with a bank of switches (SPST or DPDT) then you could effect that with relays.
Instead of manually flipping switches you would energize the respective coils.
How many inputs and how many outputs do you want?
Multiply the number of inputs by the number of outputs to get the number of 'switches' you'll need.
It gets very complicated very quickly!
That may be the thing that pushes this beyond the realm of feasible. Ideally this is essentially a cat6 patch panel that I would like to variably specify which inputs are connected. Because this cat6 each "input" is essentially 8 wires that would need to be connected to 8 "output" (another cat6 cable) wires so the total number would get out of hand quickly.
Does anyone have any ideas to simplify this a bit?
Streat90:
That may be the thing that pushes this beyond the realm of feasible. Ideally this is essentially a cat6 patch panel that I would like to variably specify which inputs are connected. Because this cat6 each "input" is essentially 8 wires that would need to be connected to 8 "output" (another cat6 cable) wires so the total number would get out of hand quickly.
All 8 wires of the cat 6 cable can probably be switched together. What we need to know is the number of cat 6 input sockets and the number of cat 6 output sockets.
I used to maintain a patch panel with about 150 inputs and about 250 possible outputs (3 full height 19" racks).
*The resulting rats-nest of patch leads was a wonder to behold! *
I devised a record sheet, completed in pencil (to allow for changes), to record the interconnections. It was the only way to tell which input was connected to which output, as it was almost impossible to trace the patch leads through the tangle.
Streat90:
Does anyone have any ideas to simplify this a bit?
Yes.
You cannot use a patch panel to "switch anything". In fact, there are no real uses for such a thing anyway. You need to go back and figure out what it really is that you want to do.
If you want to switch specific groups of signals such as a KVM switch, then you must divide your line groups into their respective types and separately arrange the appropriate sort of switching for each.
In telephony and for some similar purposes, you would use a crossbar. For signals in the 5 to 12V range and with minimal current, you use the (74HC)405x (1,2,3) range of CMOS devices.
Now the simplification of a "patch panel" is to use the telephony concept of "links" - you use a crossbar with as many "line" rows as needed, but a limited number of "link" columns which you can use to connect one row to another.