Ping360 with longer cable

Blue Robotics Products
1

Hello,

Is it possible to buy a Ping360 with a longer built-in cable, like up to 10m or so? If not, is there a way to install a longer cable yourself? Or would it be necessary to splice an additional cable onto the existing one?

Thanks!

Asa

2

Hi @apacker

Blue Robotics doesn’t offer custom versions of the Ping360, at least in single quantities. If you’re after significant quantities, typically 50+, you can reach out to the sales team for a quote.

You can extend the cable yourself though! To communicate over long ranges, it’s best to use Ethernet or RS485 - see how to use those interfaces here.

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3

Hi @tony-white ,

Thanks for the response! This is for a single unit at this point, so I’m looking at doing it myself. Thanks for the ethernet/rs485 info.

How would you recommend doing the cable extension? I see you offer lots of WetLink parts but I’m not clear on exactly what I’d need.

Asa

4

Hi @apacker -

You’d buy something like the Blue Robotics Fathom tether, and pass it through the appropriate 7.5mm HC WetLink Penetrator, and install this on the Ping360. You’d then splice the connectors from the original connector onto the appropriate twisted pairs of the tether. Note that because the Fathom tether doesn’t meet Cat-5 spec, it won’t work for particularly long ethernet runs - 10m should be fine tho (up to 30-40?)

You’d connect the opposite end two twisted pairs used for communication to an ethernet jack, and the wires for power to your DC power supply.

We’ve done this for a custom order before - this was the wiring breakdown. RS485 would also work, and only use one twisted pair for data, but the lower data rate means the scan rate will be lower…. ethernet is the fastest!
I’d recommend keeping the DC supply voltage less than 20V - with long cable runs voltage spikes can sometimes lead to performance issues…

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5

Thanks @tony-white! I think I’m getting the idea. It looks like the Ping360 uses an M10 size penetrator, and the tether is 7.6mm diameter, so would we need the M10-7.5mm-LC-7.5mm±0.3 penetrator? It looks like the HC version in that size only works with cables up to 7.3mm diameter?

6

Hi @apacker,

You can find the compatible WetLink Penetrator for all of our cables in the product page technical details section. The same is true for all Blue Robotics products that have a WetLink Penetrator already installed.

The standard tether uses the M10-7.5mm-HC WLP because the foam jacket is very squishy, so the higher compression is required to create a good seal.

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7

Hi @DanielG_BR & @tony-white , Thanks so much for your answers here! One last question, I was wondering about the connectors that mate with the 2-pin power and 4-pin comms ports on the Ping360 PCB. It looks like they are “JST GH series connectors”? Could you tell me the part numbers for those, so we could add those to the tether cable and avoid doing any damage to the original cable that comes with the Ping360? Thanks!

8

Hi @apacker

You can find that information on the connector standard!

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