Electronics USB cable extension

okay im not sure if this belongs here or not, if not moderator please move it to its proper place. Here goes, I was trying to figure out where to put my priniter and my closet sounded like the best place, so my question is if i could take a usb a to b cable, cut it in half and use some network cable to reconnect the two pieces of usb cable, so instead of having a 10 foot cable, i would have a 30 foot cable, its that at all possible?

Post where seems appropriate, but please, only post a question in 1 forum.

2 threads merged (cpemma)

 

So YMMV

For the metrically-challenged, 30' = 9m

 

Yeah thats right, so i take it, its not possible, but the funny thing is that i have seen 9.2m usb cables in the stores, and i figrued since network cable is made for sending and recieving data, it may just work, any other suggestions?

 

that should work the only thing u have to look up is how far a usb cable will go.
make sure you sauder and not just use shrink wrap.

 

O I have no problem soldering, I just dont know where to get the specs for a usb cable, does anyone?

 

I've got daisy chained hubs that work just fine, its alot more expensive than just the cable but should do the job :/

 

So you just took long cables and put them into hubs then out again, thats friggin expensive, i dont have the money to do that, i just want one solid cable, if its possible.

 

I think I read somewhere that the max allowed length for an unpowered USB cable is 5 metres.

However you can get 10 metres by using a 5 metre A-B cable & one of those USB "Booster" cables, which is a 5 metre cable with a bus-powered single port hub on the end.

 

Without hubs/repeaters no... usb has a max length, it's not due to signal loss, but timing.

 

you can get el-cheapo mini-hubs for us$7-10... not thaat expensive

 

Okay well extending the cable is ruled out, how bout using blue tooth? SO that means having a sending and recieving blue tooth at both ends, one at the prinetrs end and one at the computers end?

 

That'd be more expensive that buying usb hubs to do it... but then you've got the advantage of being wireless. Bluetooth should work up to 10m.

 

Connecting a hub to another hub may result in an error (maybe it's brand-dependent, I used two Belkin hubs):

 

The all hubs except the last will have to be powered, otherwise you'll get the low power error.

 

Purely out of interest, does your printer only use USB? 'cos you'll probably get away with making a too-long parallel cable, as the IEEE-1284 standard is somewhat less sensitive. It's also a lot easier to build your own booster for

 

Use Ethernet, since it's designed for very long distances (I have seen many Ethernet adapters for printers).