USB Extension cable experience with Kinect

[Xsu Ma]

Hello,

To cover 24 meter stage by 4 kinects and 1 computer, I would need 4
internal USB hubs, but most importantly, to extend the kinect cables
to up to 15-20 meters.

Could somebody kindly share an experience with extending kinect usb
cables?

Thanks.


--X

[Angelo Casalini]

If it can help, I've extended successfully with a 5 meters USB
cable...have never tried with more distance.

15-20 meters seems a huge distance, if I remember right the USB 2.0
specification limits the length of a cable between full speed devices
to 5 meters, maybe using powered USB repeaters you can regenerate the
signal along the way.

Angelo

2011/5/17 Xsu Ma <zab...@gmail.com>:

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[Xsu Ma]

Hi Angelo:

The powered USB cables are claimed to be daisy–chainable up to 4 times
(giving a 20 m extension total):

>>>>Testing the Xbox Kinect with these extension cables, we found that you could daisy chain up to 4 of these together and it would work.


Here: http://bit.ly/mLJFez

I am looking for a first–hand experience with those.

Thanks.


--X

[MichaelK]

Or you put the computer in the middle of the stage. Then you only need
10m cables.

[Xsu Ma]

That's the problem I am trying to solve -- I can't put computer in the
middle of the stage.

--X

[Jacob]

We have exteneded it much farther, up to 100 m, using a USB 2.0 CAT 5
extender. From all of the testing we have done, it works just great.
Here is the extender we are using:
http://www.blackbox.com/Store/Detail.aspx/USB-Ultimate-Extender-over-UTP-4-Port/IC400A
You need to make sure that it is a USB 2.0 extender.
-Jacob

> > > > > For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/openni-dev?hl=en.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Xsu Ma]

Wow! Just to be sure: this usb cat 5 extender has been tested with a
Kinect, right?

Thanks!


--X

On May 19, 12:08 pm, Jacob <jacobgallo...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> We have exteneded it much farther, up to 100 m, using a USB 2.0 CAT 5
> extender. From all of the testing we have done, it works just great.

> Here is the extender we are using:http://www.blackbox.com/Store/Detail.aspx/USB-Ultimate-Extender-over-...

> > > > > > For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/openni-dev?hl=en.-Hide quoted text -

[Jacob]

Yes, the Kinect is what we have been using. We have only been using a
single Kinect, and have not tried multiple Kinects (with USB
controllers, and USB extenders for each would be necesary), but I have
not noticed any problems with the detection or using OpenNI, compared
to using it on my desktop computer. I think I have had USB plug and
play problems when I plugged in USB hard drives onto the same USB
controller that the Kinect was on, but that may be more with the USB
controller or extender, not the Kinect itself. I noticed on that site
there were cheaper individual USB CAT5 extenders for 50 m as well, but
we have not looked at those.

I would suggest though that whatever computer has all of these Kinects
connected, that it is a nice one, with many CPU cores, high PCI
bandwidth, and plenty of memory.

-Jacob

> > > > > > > For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/openni-dev?hl=en.-Hidequoted text -
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[Xsu Ma]

Hi Jacob,

Very instructive, thanks a lot.

--X