5-pin EZ connect extension?

[Butters]

Anyone have any luck finding a male/female 5-pin EZ connect extension for the bundled electrical harness for the RT-680 (or otherwise). Completing an outdoor kitchen remodel, and we’ve separated the controller from the smoker. Need just a short mid span extension (even a foot would do) for the 5-pin bundle. Would prefer to keep it EZ/quick connect if possible. So much easier to disconnect when working on it.

Anyone done this? Any ideas?

 

[breadman624]

Gender specific 5 pins offend me

 

[mshaefer]

I did this recently. It's 18 AWG stranded wire, essentially the same as lamp wire. You can easily butt splice extensions into it. Otherwise get on Amazon and order molex plugs and the appropriate wire and you can create your own extensions that way.

 

[mshaefer]

...and for more context on the extension, probably the cleanest way to do this is just to extend the wires on the controller side with new longer lengths. You can actually pull the little pins out of the plug (google molex plug pin removal, you don't need a special tool). You can get molex pins on amazon, very cheap. You can also get new "quick connect" wire terminals to connect the new wires to the controller. What you would do is pull the pins from the existing molex plug so that the plug is now empty. Terminate your new longer wire with molex pin on one end and female quick connect on the other. Insert the molex pins into the appropriate corresponding slot. Then just plug in the quick connect to the appropriate spot on the controller. Voila, new longer wires using the existing connector.

When I needed to do this last week I couldn't get the wire I needed, so I butt spliced lamp wire into it and will do the process I just described once the correctly colored 18AWG stranded wire to get here.

 

[Butters]

...and for more context on the extension, probably the cleanest way to do this is just to extend the wires on the controller side with new longer lengths. You can actually pull the little pins out of the plug (google molex plug pin removal, you don't need a special tool). You can get molex pins on amazon, very cheap. You can also get new "quick connect" wire terminals to connect the new wires to the controller. What you would do is pull the pins from the existing molex plug so that the plug is now empty. Terminate your new longer wire with molex pin on one end and female quick connect on the other. Insert the molex pins into the appropriate corresponding slot. Then just plug in the quick connect to the appropriate spot on the controller. Voila, new longer wires using the existing connector.

When I needed to do this last week I couldn't get the wire I needed, so I butt spliced lamp wire into it and will do the process I just described once the correctly colored 18AWG stranded wire to get here.

Thank you for the great help on this. I’ve ordered some male/female Molex 5pin quick connects and some 18awg wire. Going to take a shot at creating a mid-span connector, so as to leave current connectors in the wire harness bundle and in the control unit in place. If it works I’ll post some pictures. Was thinking about doing the same for the 2 RTD wires (adding a 2 pin Molex quick connect), but they seem narrower so introducing a quick connect midpiece might not work. This may be a straight up splice in.

 

[mshaefer]

Works on the RTDs as well as far as my tests can show. My grill is in an enclosure that's required me to take off the side shelf and relocate the controller. Project I'm on now is a single plug quick connect and stowable housing for the controller. This all started after I sheered off the RTD when installing the grill.

Maybe you already know, but RTDs work by measuring the electrical resistance across a platinum filament, a resistance that changes in a linear fashion based on temperature (i.e. if temp goes up, resistance goes up, and vice versa; if the computer knows the resistance reading or a voltage conversion, it returns a temp). Extending or changing the RTD leads can introduce additional resistance and make your temp seem artificially high. Because the RTDs in a Rec Teq are 1000 ohm and not 100 (PT1000 vs PT100), their total readout is less effected by the small change introduced by any such added resistance (consider if you had $100 or $1000, an extra $5 adds relatively more to the $100 than the $1000).

One consideration to make if you're trying to lengthen the RTD wire is to do so with a wire of similar impedance (i.e. a wire that has a similar natural resistance to the OEM RTD wire). If you strip an ethernet cable, there are shielded wires inside. These seem to be pretty close and if you're only adding a short run of a couple of feet, it may not effect it that much (not much that I can tell at least).

Thank you for the great help on this. I’ve ordered some male/female Molex 5pin quick connects and some 18awg wire. Going to take a shot at creating a mid-span connector, so as to leave current connectors in the wire harness bundle and in the control unit in place. If it works I’ll post some pictures. Was thinking about doing the same for the 2 RTD wires (adding a 2 pin Molex quick connect), but they seem narrower so introducing a quick connect midpiece might not work. This may be a straight up splice in.

 

[Drnoci]

So what exactly did you use for the RTD wire extension? Working on the same project?

 

[Roaniecowpony]

Looks like a Molex connector to me. Possibly a Chinese Molex copy. I'd just cross reference with the closest match of a Molex and buy 2 sets of male-female and work from there.

 

[ToddKivi]

So what exactly did you use for the RTD wire extension? Working on the same project?

Did you ever figure out a solution to extend the Rtd wire? Needing to do the same thing