TechBlog from Sewell

Extensions extensions extensions. Got some amazing devices you need to connect and running into distance problems? Well here’s a list of some common connection types and what you can do to extend them.

First we’ll start with USB extension cables. USB can only be extended up to 15 feet unless you use some sort of active extender.

The passive 6 foot extension is great if you just need a few more feet. You can see it here:
USB extension cable

If you need to go further you can use the 16 foot USB 2.0 active extension cable. This cable has a built in repeater that is self powered by the USB bus. These can also be daisy chained to give you up to an 80 foot extension.
16 Foot USB active extension cable

Need some USB 1.1 ports a long ways away from your computer? You can use a USB over CAT5 extender. This box will convert the usb connection to common CAT5 ethernet cable. Then at the other end it will give you a 4 port USB 1.1 hub up to 150 feet away.
USB 1.1 Ethernet extender

Now let’s look at some firewire extension cables. Firewire also has the same limitation as USB, it can only be extended up to a 15 foot cable unless you use an active extension.

We have a 14.5 foot active extension cable that is 6-pin male to female. This cable also has a bus powered booster built into it (Note: they must be plugged into a 6-pin firewire port on the pc for it to get power. They do not work with 4-pin computer ports.) These can be daisy chained up to a total of 60 feet. They are capable of running the FireWire 400 speed.
14.5 foot Firewire active extension

If you need to go further, or want to power a device while plugging into a 4-pin firewire port on your computer, you can use our firewire repeaters. You can see Mark’s post about those here:
Running long firewire extensions

And for those of you that still have some important serial devices kicking around let’s look at serial extensions.

Unlike firewire and USB, serial can be extended very far without any boosters. We have extension cables from 6 feet to 100 feet. The 100 foot is shown here:
DE9 (DB9) Serial extension cable

For those of you who want to use easy to run cat5 cable to run you serial extension, you can use these serial to rj45 modulators.
Serial to RJ45 modulator

There’s a great product for sharing a serial device with lots of computers. And the great thing is it does it over a wireless network connection. The adapter fully supports 64-bit and 128-bit WEP and WPA wireless security standards.
Wireless Serial device server

If you have any other questions or needs feel free to call the Sewell Direct tech support at 1-800-709-1345. Or email us at support@sewelldirect.com

We’re asked a lot by customers, “How far can you extend a Firewire connection?”

The answer, It depends.

If you’ve been in a situation where it’s difficult to connect a camera, camcorder, audio mixer, hard drive, or other Firewire device, there’s many options out there for you to extend your existing connection depending how far you want to go.

1-15 ft.

You can reasonably just purchase a cable to connect your devices to the host (computer). Most common Firewire 400 cables are averaging 10-15ft. Check out the 15 foot Firewire cable.

15-250 ft.

Generally speaking, since Firewire carries both data and power, an active extension able is needed for carrying the signal and power to your device. This can be accomplished by looking into purchasing a Active Extension cable as well as a regular cable. You can “daisy-chain” 2 extension cables giving you about 30-40ft. After the 40 foot mark, a repeater is needed to amplify the signal by providing power. Gefen makes a repeater that allows you to extend up to 250 feet by purchasing multiple repeaters.

250ft – 1640 ft.

After the 250 foot foot mark, the Firewire data connection needs to be changed into a different medium that’s capable of longer distances. To further extend a Firewire connection, fiber optics are the technology that not only extends this medium, but can also extend video, Ethernet, KVM’s, and more. When you use fiber, the signal doesn’t degrade over distance. You’re only limited to the amount of fiber you have and how much distance the extender will handle. For more information on extending your Firewire connection, check out Gefen’s Fiber Firewire Extender.

If you’ve been dreaming for the ultimate audio interface for all your pro audio computer recording needs, look no further. The RME Fireface 800 192/24 56 Channel FireWire Audio interface is the silver bullet, nay, even the last word in FireWire audio interfaces. This bad boy has 8 analog 1/4″ input jacks, 8 more output jacks, even four phantom powered XLR mic jacks on the front of the Fireface. What more could you ask for? How about a couple of ADAT optical in/output jacks for your digital audio needs? Now we’re drooling.

Update: Check out the TerraTec Phase 24 fw Firewire Audio Interface. This little honey, while not as feature-rich as the Fireface, still has much of the same functionality, at a much more affordable price. Check it out!

Some guy asked me today, “What is the power port on the Firewire/USB PCI combo card for?” The answer is “YES!” That port is provided to power the Firewire ports on the card.

Mini-itx computers are amazingly small computers.

They can be powerful machines, they dont take up very much space, and they are highly modifiable. http://www.mini-itx.com/ is a great site for seeing all of the crazy things people do with these little devils. If you are looking for ideas of what you can add to your mini itx machines, then consider some of these options:

USB Hubs allow you to add more USB peripherals to your computer.

You can add all sorts of ports to your computer by using USB adapters.

You can even use USB Docking Stations to make your work area less cluttered.

Another cool USB add on is a USB capture device which can allow you to turn your computer into a Tivo. My personal favorite is the High Definition TV capture device.

Many ITX computers have PCI slots inside. With a free PCI slot you can add all sorts of functionality to your computer. You may want to use your PC as a multimedia center. If you do, then you may want a TV tuner inside it.

You can check out a plethera of possible PCMCIA or PCI cards that will work with your mini PC.

There are many models and makes of firewire cards. If your computer is a laptop then you we carry a Firewire PCMCIA card that should do the trick. Some newer laptops have newer ports that are not compatible with PCMCIA cards. If you purchased your laptop during or after January 2005, then you may want to double check what sort of slot you have. We do have a Firewire PCMCIA card that comes with Ulead movie making software.

If your computer is a desktop, then you can use a PCI Firewire card. We do have a Firewire PCI card with Ulead movie making software.

If your device requires a 9 pin connection, then you will need a Firewire 800 solution. Firewire 800 is backwards compatible with all firewire connections. To accomplish this conversion, check out some of our Firewire 800 cables.

There are several different Firewire connections. Some of the more common are 4 pin and 6 pin firewire. The difference between these two connections is that the 6 pin connection has two pins for power, while the 4 pin doesnt. So, you may think to your self “since my firewire device requires power, and I have a 6 pin firewire port on my computer, I’m good to go.” Well, the devil’s in the details of this mess. Not all 6 pin firewire ports supply power to devices.

For example, many PCMCIA Firewire cards have 6 pin ports, yet they have no external power source. Well, it turns out that PCMCIA does not supply enough power on its own to power a Firewire device. In other words, your firewire device will work if it has its own supply of power. If you need to power your 6 pin firewire device, then you will need a port that is built into the Laptop, or you will need a PCMCIA firewire card that plugs into a wall outlet.

Many Firewire hubs have 6 pin ports. But many of these hubs do not power devices. Even some of the hubs that plug into wall outlets do not power devices.

Most PCI cards do supply enough power through Firewire not to cause problems.

IEEE stands for Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers which is (among other things) a standards body that develops communication standards used in computers and peripherals.

I think the easiest way to understand communication standards is to think of them as Languages that the computer speaks. A language is just a set of pre-defined vocabulary and grammar–word order and usage. A standards committee helps to set the vocabulary and grammar of communication. So a Linux server can talk to a Macintosh and a computer running Windows 98. All the computers understand exactly what is happening, because they are all speaking the same language.

While in actuality it really does just boil down to a bunch of 1’s and 0’s…. think of how people talk on 2 way radios. You can’t speak and listen at the same time, so people developed a type of ’standard’ where they would say a lot of “Over”s and “Roger”’s. Assume that some one misinterpreted the standard, they might keep flipping the radio ‘over’ or ignore the entire conversation because it is obviously intended for someone named Roger. The communication standards save us from a technological tower of Babel.

The most common IEEE standards that consumers run into are IEEE 1284, IEEE 1394, and IEEE 802.11.

IEEE 1284 is the standard used for communication to Parallel devices. (The other option would be to communicate directly with another computer… and that uses a different type of cable) IEEE compliant cables are used to connect parallel Printers, scanners, zip drives, and other devices. They generally come with three kinds of connections.

• There is the basic DB25, which matches the 25 pin port on the back of most desktop computers.
• There is the 36 pin Centronics port, which is about 2″ wide and acually uses a tongue and groove type interface rather than independent pins.
• HP developed another port that they put on some of their printers and all-in-one devices. We call it the Mini Centronics but it is also called “Centronics C” sometimes. It looks generally the same as the standard Centronics port, (36 pins or contacts and the tongue and groove type interface) but it is about half the width, only about 1 inch wide.

IEEE 1394 is most commonly known as Firewire and is sometimes also called ilink or lynx It can be used to connect Hard drives, digital cameras and seems to be the connection of choice now for Digital Camcorders. Again there are three common connections.

• 6 pin is about a half inch wide and kind of bullet shaped, with 3 contacts on each side.
• The 4 pin connector is a small rectangle with one concave side. The 4 pins actually sit on the concave side.
• There is now also a 9 pin connector that supports the Firewire 800 (IEEE 1394b) specification. The 9 pin connection kind of has a picture frame look, a rectangle inside a rectangle, with 9 contacts on the inside.

802.11 is a standard used for wireless internet. First there was 802.11a, it was problematic and never gained wide acceptance. 802.11b is also known as WiFi, and virtually created the market for wireless networking. Most of the access points that you find in Hotels, Airports and Cafe’s use 802.11b. There is also IEEE 802.11g, which is backward compatible with 802.11b so it can use all of the WiFi access points. The “G” cards support a highter transfer rate (54 Mbps compared to 11 Mbps for WiFi transfers) and has better range. So if you are buying… look for 802.11g and you will likely be happy.

So that’s the basic rundown. If a User Manual or product description mentions IEEE, in any of it’s variations, hopefully you’ll have a feel for what they are talking about.

If you ever find that your hardware is acting funny, then try updating the driver. If your device uses a native driver, then you will most likely be unsuccessful in finding an update. The best two sources for drivers are the company you bought the driver from, and the manufacturer of the device. You can visit our driver site for updated drivers. If you didnt buy the device from our site, then there is a good chance that our driver will not work with your device.

This suggestion has proven to be particularly successful with GPS units and USB to Serial adapters.

Many incompatibilities between device and controllers, are caused by incompatibilities with chipsets. For example, Our SW-1301 uses a prolific chipset. We have seen cases where a GPS unit is compatible with one of our prolific chipsets and not another. If you find that you are having compatibility problems, then try another chipset. Our SW-1301, SW-1310, SW-1901. SW-1902 use the prolific chipset. SW-1314, SW-1315, SW-1316, SW-1317, SW-1318 all use an FTDI chipset. SW-1322 has a BAFO chipset. SW-1319, SW-1320, DSU-100, QSU-100 all use the Quatech chipset. You can view our USB to serial adapters at our support site. Chipsets do not only affect Serial adapters. They can affect most controllers (i.e. USB, Firewire, etc..).