Prolite PL-M2014R Cable Construction

I purchased a 25 foot, straight-thru, 6-pin RJ12 cable and a 6-pin RJ12 to female DB9 adaptor kit. The cost for both together was under $5 at MicroCenter.

Using a Cross Over RJ12 Cable

You can tell that you have a cross over (and not straight through) cable by putting the cable end to end, pins up, and confirming the colors don't reverse order.

White
Black
Red
Green
Yellow
Blue		 White
Black
Red
Green
Yellow
Blue

    Note: An RJ11 is the exact size and shape as an RJ12, the only difference is that the RJ11 has four wires instead of six. Since the connector only uses three of four wires, save yourself some money and just use a standard telephone cable that has four wires (some of the cheaper phone cables have two; two wires won't work).

Wiring the RJ12 to DB9 Adaptor

Assuming you have a cross over cable...

Connect the green wire to pin 2, the red wire to pin 3, and the yellow wire to pin 5. Be sure to push the pins into the back of the female receptical until none of the connector metal is visible.

None of the other wires are used. Cram them in the adaptor, but make sure they don't touch the exposed RJ12 innards.

Construction Hint:
When building your cable, connect the adaptor wires directory to a male DB9 to confirm the pinouts. Once you are sure things work, push them into the back of the female part of the adaptor.

Don't Panic: If you have a straight through cable, then you can still construct an adaptor, you just have to account for the reserved wires. Here's how:

     Black -- Black  | Yellow
(3)    Red -- Red    | Green  (3)
(2)  Green -- Green  | Red    (2)
(5) Yellow -- Yellow | Black  (5)
 
Reversed Cables Only
Connect the green wire to pin 3, the red wire to pin 2, and the black wire to pin 5.

Adaptor Information from Pro-Lite

Pro-Lite has decided to publish how to build the cabel on their web site as well. Here's the Tru-Color II Serial Port Assignments.

ALPHA/BetaBrite Users

If you have an Alpha or a BetaBrite sign, you cannot use this adapter! Instead, see the Alpha sign cable adapter construction instructions.

Connect to the Computer

Fasten together the adaptor, plug the RJ12 into the message board and the other end into the adaptor, then connect the adaptor to a communications port on your PC.

To communicate with the ProLite PL-M2014R, you should set the baudrate* on the message board to match the computer, and use 8 bits, No Parity, 1 Stop Bit, and No Flow Control (not Xon/Xoff, not Hardware).

Note that you can not send straight text to the message board, you must communicate with the board using a simple protocol.

*  The baudrate is set on the message board by using the remote: Press ESC, S, Enter eight times, then use the Up/Down arrows to select from 300/600/1200/2400/4800/9600 baud, then Enter four more times.

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