Wiring Devices

When you click a device in the Devices Lists, you get into "Device View" screen. In this view you have a complete representation of the device with all input and output ports.

To connect wires, you just click the "+" link in the CABLE column of the desired port and enter the wire number into the box that there appears.

Say for instance you want to connect wire number A-001 to the SDI-1 Output of the FS1 you created in the previous section.

Once in the Device View of your device, locate the desired output and click the "+" link in its CABLE column. In the little box appearing there, enter the wire number: you can enter "a1", "a-1", "a 1", "A-01", etc. The system will automatically convert your entry to standard format: "A-001".

Now the view shows wire A-001 connected to SDI-1 Output port. A question mark (?) in the "Connected To" column indicates that the other end of the wire is not connected yet.

Let's connect the other end to another device, for instance a new VDA.

Proceed as explained in previous section to add a new VDA to rack 7. You can navigate to the rack directly by clicking in the "RK-7" button of the Navigator located at the top of the view.

Once you have your new VDA in place, navigate to its Device View.

Locate one of its inputs and click the "+" link of its CABLE column. Enter the wire number: "a1". Now you have the two devices connected with wire number A-001.

Notice that the "Connected To" column now contains a reference to the port connected at the other end of the wire. Clicking that column will take you to the device view of the AJA FS1 you created previously. Notice that the "Connected To" column not longer contains a question mark but a reference to the VDA, also clickable.

If you click the CABLE column of a connected wire in Device View, you will be taken to a "Wire Info" screen with more information about that wire: Label, Color, Type, Multiconductor, Status, Connection Reference and Hash number.

We will cover the last four in section "Advanced Data Entry".

Clicking the [Edit] button will take you to an "Edit Cable" form where you will be able to add or change optional information. Notice that the actual wire number (fields Prefix and Number) can not be changed.

Label refers to an optional label (apart from the wire number itself) the wire could bear, for example "Roof CAM".

Color is the physical wire color. For instance, most AES wires in our facility are color orange.

The Type is picked from a list box. It could be "Coax", "Ethernet", etc.

Again, this information is optional, but it may prove useful if present.

You may want to disconnect a wire from a port, either to reflect wires that have been disconnected in real life or because you committed a mistake when entering the data.

To disconnect a wire, go to its "Cable Info" view by clicking its CABLE column in Device View and click the [Disconnect] button. Press [Proceed] in the prompt screen to confirm your action.

Now you are taken back to Device View. The wire have been disconnected from that port and marked as "Dangling at (this location)". If you navigate to the Device View of where the other end of the wire is connected, you will see the Dangling message in the corresponding "Connected To" column.

You can also delete the wire all together. To do this, navigate to the "Edit Cable" view and click the [Delete] button.

When you delete a wire, its record is removed from the Database so all associated information is gone.

The system will prevent you from connecting a wire between two inputs or two outputs. If you try to do that, you will get an error.

There is an exception to this constrain: the case of "Bidirectional signals" such as Ethernet and Serial. We will cover that in section "Advanced Data Entry".