Who has the longest working USB cable?

[geoffw]

........ Linking their camera to the computer?

I would like to move my camera onto the roof (Approx 8 metres) or, better still down the garden (Approx 25 metres) to give decent panorama with cattle and sheep to rival Gina's.

[mcrossley]

I use 5m active USB extenders withmy astro cameras, they work fine, and you use them with a standard USB cable in the end giving about 7m.

To go further you can use a pair of UTP converters, but these are more expensive. The problems with distance are mainly the increased latency in the protocol causing retries and collisions.

[Gina]

........ Linking their camera to the computer?

I would like to move my camera onto the roof (Approx 8 metres) or, better still down the garden (Approx 25 metres) to give decent panorama with cattle and sheep to rival Gina's.

I've just looked for my long USB cables - I have two 10m ones, one just a plain extender and the other with an amplifier/relay thingy which will allow USB to be extended up to 50m. I found the 10m plain extension still connecting my weather station console to the PC. I'll test it with the webcam tomorrow and let you know if there's any problem.

[hills]

My camera is on a 10m USB cable.

[yv1hx]

Hi all,

I have a homemade cable extension of about 10 or 12 meters, built from spare 4 pairs CAT5 UTP cable, with standard "A" USB connectors (Male and Female) directly soldered in both ends.

Since the USB cables uses four wires (2 for data and 2 for power), I used 1 pair (white/green, as far as I can remember) for data and the others pairs for power the Webcam.

There is no repeaters or amplifiers in the cable, just a end-to-end extension cable.

For those interested, this will be a useful links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus
http://www.accesscomms.com.au/reference/usb.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Types-usb_new.svg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USB_types_2.jpg
http://www.instructables.com/id/Usb-Don ... onnection/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Usb-Don ... tructions/

Later I shall publish some photographs.

[yv1hx]

The offered pictures...

For building this extension cable, you will need some electronics skills and A LOT OF PATIENCE AND GOOD EYES…

BTW, Thanks to my beautiful girlfriend for helping while shooting the photos :)

Hope this helps to someone...

[Gina]

Having lashed out on the Microsoft LifeCam HD 720p Cinema webcam, I now have a spare webcam which I'm thinking of using as an additional WeatherCam covering a different part of the sky. Other than pointing east, which would directly catch the morning sun, I will need a long cable. Some time ago I bought a USB to RJ45 (and back) repeater/entender system which will extend USB 1.1 up to 50m using standard network cable. Now my old webcam is USB 1.1 (new one is USB 2) so this seems a practical solution.

Screenshot-19b.png

Amazon UK have these currently though I bought mine in one of Maplin's sales at a knock down price. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Newlink-CAT5-US ... d_sim_ce_5

Amazon have various lengths of RJ45 CAT5e cables at reasonable prices IMO. eg. a 30m one here :- http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cat5e-RJ45-Ethe ... 248&sr=1-2 They do 20m and 15m and shorter ones too.

I think I have a fairly suitable location for the webcam to point roughly north. It's quite a high point but accessible with a ladder. I estimate I'd need about 20m of cable but I'll measure it more precisely later. I'll post more when I have more info and/or I have a working setup.

I'm afraid this setup would not be suitable for a high res webcam using USB 2, such as the MS LifeCam Cinema, as it only handles USB 1.1.

[Gina]

I've checked out the older (Sweex) webcam with the USB-RJ45 adapters and a short network cable and it works fine. However, I've just got a 30m RJ45 cable and it doesn't work Two possibilities, the cable could be faulty or that 30m is just too long. I'll check out the cable first.

A bit later... well, the 30m cable works as a network cable - I unplugged the 20m cable that feeds my laptop (through the roof space) and substituted the 30m cable (along the floor). I have working network from the laptop. At the same time I connected the 20m cable to a USB port on the laptop via one adapter and used the other to connect the webcam to the other end of the 20m cable, and that also works (using XawTV).

So, it looks like 30m is too much. That means the best and easiest webcam location is out. "Back to the drawing board"! Though I guess it's possible that the 30m cable is poorer quality (it's a cheap one).

[beteljuice]

The problem (presumeably) is not the video data but the power ? - what about a splitter or a powered repeater after the network adaptor at the cam end ?

[Gina]

The problem (presumeably) is not the video data but the power ? - what about a splitter or a powered repeater after the network adaptor at the cam end ?

Yes, it could be the power, particularly as the webcam has 6 LEDs. I'll try a powered USB hub. Thanks

[Gina]

The problem (presumeably) is not the video data but the power ? - what about a splitter or a powered repeater after the network adaptor at the cam end ?

Yes, it could be the power, particularly as the webcam has 6 LEDs. I'll try a powered USB hub. Thanks

Just done a test (before buying a powered hub). Checked the LED brightness with short and long cable - the LEDs were significantly dimmer on the long cable. Disconnected 5 of the LEDs but the remaining one still dims significantly. I disconnected the last LED and measured the supply voltage on the webcam - just 2.6v instead of 5v. Not surprising it didn't work! I'll get a powered USB hub - cheapest and easiest way of getting a stabilised 5v supply at the webcam end.

[Gina]

Powered USB hub arrived this morning and I've connected the webcam through it and the 30m cat5e cable to my main Linux box (using the USB-RJ45 repeater/converter boxes). It's working fine, using XawTV webcam software. Here's proof - webcam box is sitting on my other monitor looking out of the lounge window, pro-tem, and this is a screenshot of the image :-

Screenshot-21.png

Now I just need to run some mains power to the vacinity of where I want the webcam, mount the webcam and run the 30m cable into the house.

[beteljuice]

BTW - using the balun(s) should be good for 300m with unshielded twisted pair

[hills]

Have you tested the other camera with it yet?

I tried using one type of powered USB2 hub and the camera software only gave me the option to select 160 x 120 as it looks as if it had reset it to USB1 even though it was a USB2 hub. My current hub allowed me to select all of the sizes including my current size of 640x 360, but it continually reset and left the "no image available" screen in yawcam. Mind you I was sharing it with a printer and my mouse on the same hub, so that might have cause the issue.

I have now connected the 10m extension cable directly to the PC's USB port and haven't had any issues (touch wood).

Just in case it wasn't a fault with my hubs, I'd suggest testing it for a while before going to the effort of running the cable.

[Gina]

Have you tested the other camera with it yet?

No, I haven't, but I can do. Although I have it connected to the no.2 webcam in position out the back, it is only a temporary setup. I'm running the hub off a 10m mains extension lead, the camera box is just clamped in position and the cable run roughly over beams in the goat shed and across the porch roof and in through a window. No problem disconnecting hub etc and bring the cable far end indoors and connecting it to the MS webcam. The reasons I've not tried it are that the MS webcam info says it needs USB 2 (but maybe only for HD video) and I won't be using it for that anyway. However, I can see that others may be interested so I'll try it.