Nord Pad connector pin out

[UMCorps]

Does anyone here know what the pin I/O mapping is for the "ethernet" pad connector socket on the ND2?

My ambition is to make a little passive adaptor to run triggers from my modular synth to the ND2 using just the one cable rather than the current 6 but I'm struggling to find any information about the pin configuration of the Nord pad socket.

Thanks.

[Stoat]

I tried researching this early on in the hope of doing something similar. I came across a page that shed some light but iirc it was a deep search to find it. Also the ND2 uses a proprietary LAN protocol so it might not be possible unless you trial and error which may or may not brick the synth (I don't know if it would, should just be error message but I didn't get that far to try)

[pablomastodon]

It's not a LAN protocol at all, just happens to use that type of cable.

[neolithic]

I think the plug/socket is called RJ45. At least, that's what they call them in the world of networking.
Have you got a Nord Pad? You could cut/strip a short length of ordinary Ethernet cable leaving the plug on one end, then plug that into the pad and do some measuring on the other end with a decent multimeter to see what's coming out - if you are lucky you might find a common/ground pin and different voltages being sent depending on velocity etc. if it's some kind of digital data coming out then I don't fancy your chances.
However, I am very much of the poke-it-and-see-what-happens school, so it's probably best you just ignore me or you might break something/burn down your house/kill yourself.
if you could get hold of a technical/service manual you would save yourself a lot of trouble, but I haven't found any

[pablomastodon]

I think the plug/socket is called RJ45. At least, that's what they call them in the world of networking.
Have you got a Nord Pad? You could cut/strip a short length of ordinary Ethernet cable leaving the plug on one end, then plug that into the pad and do some measuring on the other end with a decent multimeter to see what's coming out - if you are lucky you might find a common/ground pin and different voltages being sent depending on velocity etc. if it's some kind of digital data coming out then I don't fancy your chances.
However, I am very much of the poke-it-and-see-what-happens school, so it's probably best you just ignore me or you might break something/burn down your house/kill yourself.
if you could get hold of a technical/service manual you would save yourself a lot of trouble, but I haven't found any

As Neo says, best to ignore him, though not because there is any risk of burning down your house or killing yourself. If you try his test you will get nothing because the device does not generate voltage. Hate to see you waste your time in that way...

Bless,

Pablo

[UMCorps]

Well, thanks for trying anyway!

I don't have a Nord Pad, just a Nord Drum 2 and a modular

As there are 8 pins on an RJ45, my best guess would be that 6 of them are for +n voltages from the individual pads and the other two will be a common ground, assuming that the Nord Pad is passive and isn't drawing any power from the ND2. If it isn't passive then one of the remaining 2 is presumably carrying that voltage to the pad.

I suppose I'll just have to crack out the multimeter and an old ethernet cable and just have a careful experiment...

[UMCorps]

Ok, so this is what I've found out. Using a probe to take a +ve DC voltage out from my modular and looking into the RJ45 socket on the ND2, the 6 pins running from right to left trigger ascending channels on the ND. Note that this is just using the +ve voltage - I'm not providing any ground reference or connection to any other pins on the RJ45, although I did have some of the trigger jack sockets connected between the modular and the ND so its possible there was a common ground there.

The remaining 2 pins are a mystery. I don't know if they are supposed to be ground or if that just floats and they are redundant. But I can't see anything coming out from them and they don't appear to have any input function.

So 6 steps closer to an answer.

[Mr_-G-]

The remaining 2 pins are a mystery. I don't know if they are supposed to be ground or if that just floats and they are redundant. But I can't see anything coming out from them and they don't appear to have any input function.

Perhaps they feed some current to the pads?

[UMCorps]

Perhaps they feed some current to the pads?

Does the pad actually need power? Looking at the various shots of it I can find on the web I can't see much evidence that it does. And I can't detect any outgoing voltages on the 2 unidentified pins in the socket.

I think I'll just try connecting the +ve outs from the modular to the 6 pins and see if that works ok on its own.

[neolithic]

As Neo says, best to ignore him, though not because there is any risk of burning down your house or killing yourself. If you try his test you will get nothing because the device does not generate voltage. Hate to see you waste your time in that way...

Well, last time I tried this kind of thing I took the precaution of videoing the process in case of mistakes...