How to Extend yout USB using UTP

This is my second Instructables. This time, I'm gonna tell everyone how to extend your USB using UTP. Why do you need to do so? Because the USB extender in shops only around 1,5 meters. It's very short, if you need 50 meters for a USB WiFi antenna on your roof. So I share to you people this technique.

P.S.: I will be making the Instructables of the Indonesia's style of USB WiFi antenna. The picture is below.

Step 1: Gather your parts

You need:
(1)USB Cable
(2)UTP Cable
(3)Small PVC Pipe
(4)Rubber tape
(5)thermofit / heatshrink

Comments

[hamidlachguer]

can I use two lines to power a USB hub on the side of the female USB port ?

[lamelia]

Great uses of USB extender, KVMSwitchTech provides various kinds of USB extender products. To know more details visit http://www.kvmswitchtech.com/cat5-usb-extender-c11634.htm

[lamelia]

Great uses of USB extender, KVMSwitchTech provides various kinds of USB extender products. To know more details visit http://www.kvmswitchtech.com/cat5-usb-extender-c11634.htm

[rock2death]

Does 10 - 15 meters would work on a laptop?

[electronicsalim]

what does that cirucuit above illustrate ?

[niraj99799]

I have a usb wabcame and i want to put in my office.. bt i want extend usb 25 meters so wat can i do?

[nemfield]

Your best bet is to use a wireless Webcam. If you want to extend USB cables you'll need a repeater (or a USB hub every 5 meters) to do this properly. The USB2 specification is very clear about this. You may get ' lucky ' making a cable. But, the cost of making a cable (using quality copper cable) , and a few repeaters, and your time depugging problems will be more than an inexpensive wireless camera. Good Luck.

[wcr_madmax]

The correct colors for any CAT 5 or CAT 6 cable are

1. slate-orange
2. orange
3. slate-blue
4. blue
5. slate-green
6. green
7. slate-brown
8. brown

[sideshowbob01]

I'm using a CAT 5e cable as well... so what color combination should I use to connect this to the usb cabling?

[ftube]

hi first thanks for the great work.

i tried that and its showing USD not recognized pls tell me how to solve this issues?

i am using windows 7 os

[mlapid]

I made 7meters extension and it works fine. But it randomly disconnect my wifi usb adapter. Can someone help me?

[bebub12]

http://www.my-fisher-price.ru/

[flame boyyyy]

why does it tell me that my usb device is unrecognized when i plug the device into the usb cable?

[dragonclan1tnt]

i got that same thing in windows 7, whats going on is that it doesn't have enough power, So what i did is set my motherboard to USB 1.1 in the BIOS and it work fine. But i works fine in linux with out setting all usb to 1.1.

In windows 7 if u dont want to do the USB 1.1 thing u can get it to work with some of the back ports of the PC try each one and try like a pen drive and the WiFi dongle then again i should say " may get it to work "

right now am looking to implement the following to try and solve my problem http://www.howtofixcomputers.com/forums/hardware/stupid-question-remote-usb-95093.html , http://193.189.160.28/seibert/HP/UsbEnh/UsbLongCable2.gif , http://193.189.160.28/seibert/HP/UsbEnh/UsbLongCable.gif o yea and this to http://imamqu.blogspot.com/2010/10/additional-power-supply-for-usb.html

[mmariappan]

thanks its superb!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
works nicely

I am from tamilnadu, india

[j21a2t89]

Just a quick point you could use a usb hub (with all the plastic stripped off) to regenerate the signal. So using the utp as well you could extend the cable theorectically to any length. You would need to remove the power socket on the hub and have a powerful enough 5v source. hmm i should create an instructable.

[grundisimo]

This is correct although you would need a USB hub every fifteen feet or so.

[theviper0308]

i was tried using 15meter utp cable.but not works coz the power is drop down.

[grundisimo]

15 Meters is WAY too long.

[zeefar]

When I connect the flash drive to the connector through the set up of USB over UTP to PC, the computer does not read the data from my flash drive device, why is that?

[Dexterdoom]

Most USB devices won't work with an extension that long without the aid of a USB powered hub. They use 5V provided by the computer, and the voltage drop over more than about 20 feet is enough to create a "USB device not recognized" by the PC. I Use webcams for security on my home, and have to use a powered hub or it won't pick the cams up. Try it.

[grundisimo]

It isn't the voltage that is affecting it. If the cable isn't shielded the interference could affect it or the data stream isn't powerful enough. It isn't voltage.

[k_man93]

 what if you use a USB "y" cable? that draws power from 2 ports, therefore doubling the power... am i correct on this?

[grundisimo]

No. Drawing power from two ports won't affect it. It will probably fry the USB device however. And even if it was plugged into two different ports on the computer it would only be able to transfer data from one.

[charlie millionaire]

Your cord must be too long then

[Squink81]

Hi there. I already made up a 10M USB 2.0 cable and I thick I remember it works ok from the computer with a webcam. But I want a longer USB cable to use the webcam to take photographs about the house and outside. Can I use this telephone cable. It has 4 wires and is used for the telephone but I am not sure if it is the same as the UTP cable.

[dombeef]

You need 5 for ground wire

[Squink81]

Thank you.

[grundisimo]

In correction to the needing five statement, If the cable is shielded it'll work with just the four.

[bayucandra]

This man doesn't included the detail way of put the IC and the input power, if some body need more clear picture, try to visit http://www.dhegleng.or.id/qe3/?p=136. I don't know is the man who wrote this instructables article and the man who wrote the article at the link i gave is same person. But the link i gave have more clear description. The problem only that my link is in Indonesian language, but don't worry it has clear picture just to see.

[danraja]

Hi Bayucandra,
thanks for your idea for using regulator IC7805 to power the usb device at farther end.but what is the maximu length of cable u have used.

tks.

[e-mail]

[anjumraza]

i was worried after puchasing evo usb for net surfing.signals were very week i made the utp wire and connectors and found that the signals were very high even a distance of 24 feet from computer to usb..thx instructable ...i loved that

[instructables_nando]

I did this with a cheap 25ft UTP cable from e-bay and it worked perfect. I try with USB and web-cam there was no lag or anything like it while watching or capturing video; webcam to backyard, I have fear phobia.

[rohit123]

i want to keep my web cam 50meter away.purpose of keeping web cam far is monitoring of my small brother from my room.does it works properly.

[ambo]

hello,i already follow your procedure for the usb extension using UTP,but i cannot make it detect as a 2.0 usb,coz ill use it with a 2.0 compatible devices.Please let me know if you have an answer for this.thank you

[Derin]

in my experience,USB 2.0 will talk USB 1.1 as well,and USB 1.1 can connect to USB 2.0 hosts.

[sintar]

in my observations a shielded 2 x 20g 2 x 28g good quality cable will do about 25 feet. but it all depends on the voltage drop or resistance of the wire test for example 20ft wire with my multi meter i read 1.1 to 1.2 ohms on the shield but 1 ohm on the vcc and gnd and 1.5 ohms on the data lines but you don't use those values to calculate your voltage drop first you need to subtract your test leads from the resistance since all wire has resistance on my meter they have a .6 ohm reading keep in mind i'm not using a cheap 10 dollar meter here  so that leaves me with .6 ohms on vcc and ground  and .9 ohm on the data lines but we really don't need to worry about the data to much unless your going over 35 40 feet using ohms law E = I R  E being voltage drop I being current (.5 A or 500 ma) and r being resistive load (in ohms)  the formula works out to be .45 volts so knowing that usb won't work below 4.4 say 4.5 to be safe then finding out my computers 5 volt line runs at 5.13 v so  5.13 - .45 = 4.68 volts after voltage drop and thats at max load and most devices don't use the full 500ma theres some room for error  now as long as the signals are clean at the far end then it should work now if you lose to much voltage over your run of cable and you can place a power supply regulated +5v and MAKE SURE TO TEST THIS closer to the end of your cable and just disconnect the +5v from the computer now for those longer distance runs you need to use a larger conductor data pair single wire for each no doubling up here or you can get some nasty interference now if you have enough power larger conductor data wires and you still have a dirty data problem try using  some ferrite rings on both ends they really do help with EMI traveling over wires sorry for the crudeness and no punctuation but i hope this helps somebody

[egomez18]

It works perfectly. Later I will give details of how that works best with the same UTP cable. Thank you very much for your idea.

[spudgunster]

The USB works in a way that theoretically limits any cable length to 16 feet, If I remember correctly, that includes the powered repeater cables too. I think they do have some usb to cat5 converter boxes, but thats way different from this instructable. This instructable will not work, it's not magic. with UTPs, you won't get much more than 15', thats my guess

[cyberjoejoe]

i've tried this a year ago... works great on my epson c59 printer..