heres the thing.... how long can a usb cable be? i am sick and tired of people knocking on my door trying to sell me religion or doubleglazing (you have no idea, i get like 3 callers a day ffs!). i just happen to have kicking around, el-cheapo webcam jobbie. cost like £2.99, its a little usb cam. the plan being i can mount this above the door, looking down out through the window above the door, to see who is ringing the bell before i decide to get up and answer the door.... so my idea being, basicly chop through the cams usb cable, and add an extra 15 metres of cable to reach from my pc at the back of the house to the front door. im not overly concerned about signal loss, the cam wont actually be on for 99.9% of the time. its just so that when someone rings the bell i can flick open the cam app, and check for presence of watchtower magazines or bits of upvc window clenched in their scabby little mitts. anyone know if theres a maximum length of a usb cable? and if so, someone tell me its less than 15 metres, lol. (and in case you were wondering, the cam allready has a green led so i wont be adding any bl00 ones )
I dont know about the lenght but I would recomend using cat5 cable due to the low resistance and such. Little off topic but I have a similar problem, does anyone know the maxium the power switch can be from the pc. I need it about 3m (ish) away from it.
good idea, i was just gonna grab some ordinary wire and make the cable, cat5 would do it a treat, and its 'nice' cable too, all pre-wrapped and shielded and such, and i allready have some spare 25 metre cables... as for the power switch, im not sure of the voltage on the line, but 3 metres doesnt seem to be excessive, im pretty sure if you just ran a length of cable with a switch on the end it should be fine and dandy. try it and see i guess.
Zidane, i see no reason that you wouldnt be able to make the USB cable another 15 or even another 20 meters as long as you use cat5 cable, however if you have it use cat5e....
the specs for MAX usb cable is 15 feet. after that you need powered boosters or hubs that add another 15 feet to the length. i know you can add like 3 or so of these together.....but they run arounf $40 -$45 CDN
this was tested in a magazine a while back afaik they found it was possible to chain 2 15ft cables together without signal degredation and i think it still worked with more just slower, 15ft is the reccomended limit tho.
does it also not depend on usb1 or usb2? i think i read somewhere usb2 can be used with longer cables than usb1?
I wouldn't think a 2.99 webcam would be USB2 so even if the PC has USB2 the camera would still only run at USB1 Try here for some info http://www.usb.org/faq/ans5
yah, ive been doing a little bit of research, but i dont think that signal loss will be two much of a problem as the cam isnt going to be on for any major length of time, litereally just for a few seconds when someone knocks on the door so i can grab a pic from it. after digging out the packaging for the cam, its a usb 1.1 cam and here is a page on it (the first one i found) after a little measuring, the cable needs to be about 15 metres (about 50 feet!) long for a tidy cable run. but i could probably shave maybe two or three metres off that (i added a metres on cause i tend to find i always need more than i thought). im gonna basicly knock up a long cable out of cat5, and see if it works. if it doesnt, anyone know where i can get a nice cheap hub? preferably one powered from the USB line cause i really dont want to have to route it to a plug socket, cause thats just gonna add to the length.
the whole point of using a hub for extending the USB is that it's a powered repeater for the signal. an unpowered hub running off USB would be rather pointless. as for the cat5 idea, it may work but i wouldn't bet on it. but then again, if you have the cable lying around and don't mind splicing and soldering, go for it.
There really isn't a max length for a power switch, all the switch does is short the connection between the 2 pins on the mobo. Nothing to worry about signal loss etc. 3m should be more than fine just use thin wire
Yeah that was what i was thinking, all it is doing is making a siginal high on one side of the pins Zidane all i can say is give it a go, not really much loss as its only a £2.99 webcam
cat5 will do you well for signal, but for the 5v, its going to suck. Use the cat5 for the signal wires and use some thicker cable for the 5v in the usb (speaker cable works well )
could you have the cat5 for the signal and then have a 5v power adapter plugged in where the camera will be placed, that way you dont have to worry about trying to get 5v from one side of the house to the other, coz cat5 shud do the data signals just fine.
USB's max length isn't due to signal loss, it's a timing thing, so anything over 3m won't work properly... especially for low powered devices such as keyboards and mice. You could put either a repeater in the line or if you have a powered USB hub that'll do the same thing.
yup jazzXP is right: http://www.usb.org/developers/usbfaq/#cab1 you need 26ns reponse down the cable min. if you go too long, it will blow out over 26ns and you get bits coliding
USB Yes 15 metres should work just. Just use the LAN cable (cat5). Should work just fine for a webcam. I'm using 8 metres on my webcam.. 3 standard and another 5metres extension. Works perfectly Power Button Yes 3 metres will work perfectly. I used 20metres one's, still worked perfect. (I had the brilliant idea, of mounting a power on switch on the bottom of my stairs, so by the time I got up, my computer was already on) the power button dosn't require any date or something, just a 'connection' between the 2 wire's... While the USB has data and power , but 15 metre's isn't that long, It should still work perfectly. Good luck to bouth L
