Max reliable distance for USB2 ext cables

[Nifty (Nev)]

Has anyone had experience with USB2 extension cables?
I want to cover a distance of 7 to 10 metres and would like to know of a reliable brand of extension cable that maintains USB2 performance over that distance.
I did think of using a gigabit LAN but the fiddly conversion at each end put me off. I strongly believe in the KISS principle.

Cheers
Nev

[cfranks (Charles)]

You can get a USB 2.0 Active Extender to 12m at Lindy.com.au. Not cheap but reliable.
A small, powered, USB Hub in the chain will give you what you want also and will be cheaper.

Charles

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

I have successfully run USB 1.1 and USB 2 over 12 metres.

A Toucam with a 2m USB cable, then I used a USB booster cable (5m) with the Booster block at the camera end, plugged into another USB booster cable (5m again) with the Booster Block at the camera end again, then plugged into a powered hub at the laptop.
Never missed a beat in years of use as a guiding system

I did some reading up about this about 6 years ago when I set it up, and apparently (according to the people who tested it all out) it is better to have the Boosters on each lead at the camera end of each cable as the data needs more pushing towards the laptop than the power needs pushing to the camera.
I never tried it with the cables around the other way, I just took their word for it.
Hey, they did the testing, and I know nothing about this stuff, so I just did what they suggested

[mithrandir (Andrew)]

Check the speed that any extender provides. At lot of USB2 ones only claim 12 megabytes/sec.

Madison claim 480Mb/s for this one and up to 5 of them can be cascaded.

[Nifty (Nev)]

Thanks all
I have taken note of the links to those interesting sites.
I think that's the way to go; better than the complications of converting to RS232 then back again, or some other way.
I had thought of going the wifi way but conversions are still necessary, dammit.
Ah well, life wasn't meant to be easy.
Cheers
Nev

[RobF (Rob)]

I've found the 10m Digitech brand from Jaycar (about $40) works well for me for mount/guider/focuser. Nothing requiring super high bandwidth mind you. Enough to help me get indoors away from cold or mossies though. It says it's USB2 on the box supposedly up to 480 Mbps.

[Nifty (Nev)]

Hi RobF
I am hoping to send video down the USB link so one of the higher bandwidth makes will be needed. I ultimately want to remote control the mount as well but that doesn't need much.
Cheers
Nev

[frolinmod]

I'm using these http://www.monoprice.com/products/pr...seq=1&format=2 10M USB2 extension cables.

They also sell 16M and 32M USB2 extension cables.