CAT5 USB2.0 Extender

[Tassidar]

Does anyone know where I can buy this? I am in Cape Town.

Essentially, it takes a USB cable, and plugs it into a CAT5 cable, and then converts back into USB at the other end, overcoming the cable length restriction of USB.

Thanks,
Tassidar

 

[BrainB]

Not sure where you can buy one, but just make your own. Two ways,

1. (My choice) Either just make your own usb cable from CAT5 Cable (just the cable, not including the RJ45 connectors) The usb pinouts can be found at http://pinouts.ru/Slots/USB_pinout.shtml. All you need to do is buy the usb connectors, try Communica in Cape Town (http://www.communica.co.za/contactus.aspx), you can buy the CAT5 cable and connectors there, and need a soldering iron (and solder) and some skills.

2. You could make the conversion cable, bit more of a mission, but basically need the usb connectors and the female RJ45 (Once again Communica)

There will be limitation on the length of the USB cable, from what I can see from the pinouts website depending on the power sourced by the usb port, up to 5 meters, but that is a guess,

Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[Johan449]

Not sure where you can buy one, but just make your own. Two ways,

1. (My choice) Either just make your own usb cable from CAT5 Cable (just the cable, not including the RJ45 connectors) The usb pinouts can be found at http://pinouts.ru/Slots/USB_pinout.shtml. All you need to do is buy the usb connectors, try Communica in Cape Town (http://www.communica.co.za/contactus.aspx), you can buy the CAT5 cable and connectors there, and need a soldering iron (and solder) and some skills.

2. You could make the conversion cable, bit more of a mission, but basically need the usb connectors and the female RJ45 (Once again Communica)

There will be limitation on the length of the USB cable, from what I can see from the pinouts website depending on the power sourced by the usb port, up to 5 meters, but that is a guess,

Just my 2 cents worth.

You can get standard USB cables of 5m.
The mentioned device pushes the cable length to almost 100m.
Far beyond what usb on cat5 can do and even 10m your way becomes tricky depending on the device you connect to due to TIMIMG issues and not VOLTAGE.

My 3 cents

 

[P924]

You can go further than 5m, I have done 25m, but that was USB1.1 and the connection was sometimes troublesome. I suggest making your own with cat6. 10m should be doable. Just make sure to put D+ and D- on a twisted pair...

 

[McGuywer]

Yip, how far do you need?