Usb Dongles for USB over CAT5 connection

Step 1 Materials and Instructions

The Dongles or connectors are very easy to build, I gather all the material from salvaged hardware

Materials:
2 Ethernet Hubs (8pin RJ45 - salvaged from network cards)
1 Usb Male Plug Type A (any standard Usb cable)
1 Usb Female Plug Type A (from a Pc)
Solder Gun, wire and electric tape.
and of course a CAT5 Ethernet Cable

Instructions:
The hardest part was desoldering the Hubs from the salvaged PCB board, after that it was just a matter of selecting which cables of the CAT5 use to solder the Usb plugs and the RJ45 Hubs.

I select the pins in the following order:

RJ45 hub = USB plug
pin No. 2 = Green Cable
pin No. 4 = White Cable
pin No. 6 = Black Cable-Ground
pin No. 8 = Red Cable

I test the configuration at the other end and test the web cam (my work very well) later I isolate each soldered connection with electric tape (with yellow tape) and cover the hole thing (black tape), and voila!. 25' of video cable (plus the hubs) and working.
Easy and extremely cheap.

Comments

[jtoomey]

Three things on running USB over Cat-5 wiring:
1. On the RJ-45 8-pin jack, you want to avoid pins 1,2,3,6 because if it accidentally gets plugged into a switch or PC Ethernet jack, the 5-volts could fry something.

2. You want the power (+5v,ground) on the same color (blue,blue-stripe) so it doesn't make an electronic field that can ruin the valuable data lines. the phone company runs 24V to our homes on one twisted pair of wires and it works fine.

3. Twisting the two data lines on one color (brown,brown-stripe) will keep data integrity over a longer run of lines. Ethernet lines do that and it works just fine.

I suggest the following from the USB to the Cat-5 jack:
1. usb pin 1 (+5v,red) goes to RJ-45 pin 5 (blue-stripe)
2. usb pin 2 (d-,white) goes to RJ-45 pin 8 (brown)
3. usb pin 3 (d+,green) goes to RJ-45 pin 7 (brown-stripe)
4. usb pin 4 (ground,black) goes to RJ-45 pin 4 (blue)

Using this configuration, you could simultaneously run Ethernet to a hub AND your USB extension with splitters and all.

[AaronOfRuston]

Lke!

[ogad_80]

I actually used this configuration for a USB web cam. Just a note, some USB's have an wire insulation that has nothing to do with making the connection just a tip for noobz like myself. I also had to cut down my Cat5 cable to about 3 meters because I was getting an error of non-recognized hardware. Thanks awesome Instructables and awesome tips!

[lp142]

Can a powered hub be put in the middle of this configuration and provide power?

[quaired]

hello everyone, this may be offtopic please excuse my comment. i made myself one project very similar to this but instead pulled out an ethernet port together with 2 usb port on a one module from the back end of a destroyed motherboard already. i have been trying to make a very long range ethernet but as i researched usb is really limited to 5 meters only. therefore i compared two cat5 cables with 1 below 5 meters and 2 above 5 meters and gathered the difference between the two:

these are my observations:
usb power supply pins1 and 4 can supply with a steady 5 volts on both cat5 cables. cable 1 below 5 meters and cable 2 above 5 meters both registered on the tester 5 volts steadily.

while testing on terminal +data and -data i get a drop of .5 when i put the testers over 1x continuity.

this lead to a conclusion that signal from the usb running through a cat5 cable drops after 5m. but the 5v supply from the usb running through a cat5 is a steady power supply.

i made this project because i want to use my socket A old cpu as surveilance system of our home using usb webcams. i can connect up to 4 webcams but distributing it around the house is very tricky. im avoiding also of ip cams because of it's high costs any suggestions on how i might solve my problem? thanks for your ideas.

[tinnyjl]

Can Use The Cables With Out The Ethernet

[arte.sano]

It depens for what, I've had luck using a usb webcam over 25ft but witha powered usb, but no luck with mouse or keyboard, maybe adapting some sort of additional power like a battery or power via ethernet using the remaining cables, or using capacitors? good luck

[milsorgen]

 Yeah your probably going to need to clean and boost the signal for extreme lengths on pins 2-3.