Dads Birdbox

[Wheels]

My dad has bought 5*5 metre lengths of usb extension cables, he has bought a webcam with infared on it. his aim is to put the webcam into a bird box that has a clear perspex piece of plastic that the webcam can point down through to show the nest and any birds entering it.

The camera works a treat when its only connected by 1 length of the 5 metre usb cable, as soon as he puts a 2nd length onto it it fails to recognise the camera, even lights up the webcams LED's but no picture, does he need a powered usb hub to connect it to, as he and I think that there is not enough power to fire up the camera and lights at the same time.

 

[neil_g]

simple answer is you cant run USB for longer than 5m without powered hubs after each cable.

http://www.usb.org/about/faq/ans5

 

[ChrisH]

I use a set of these and a 50m Cat5 cable with my cameras

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/USB-Extension...uting_CablesConnectors_RL&hash=item4aa7608e5e

However you would need a powered hub at the camera end just to power up the camera.

How you would power the hub I'm not sure

 

[Viewfinder]

Are they just plain USB extension cables you're trying?

You might need to get USB Repeater Cables which can extend USB. I was looking to do something similar last year but kept getting conflicting information from different companies as to whether the repeater cables could maintain USB 2.0 speeds for a webcam, or if in fact the distance of several repeater cables would reduce it to USB 1.1 which I'm not sure would work with my HD webcam. Needless to say I gave up trying.

 

[coldpenguin]

I just got given a bird-box at Christmas, with camera in it.
The fitting is basically like this:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BIRD-BOX-HEDG...-/220711295742?pt=UK_CCTV&hash=item33636b1afe

(I am not suggesting that this kit is any good).
Basically, a camera, with video/sound output, and 12V supply going over the cables.

On the other end, I am intending on getting/putting a device to convert the video signal to the computer.
It works quite well (the system I have, it is not necessarily the kit in the link, but the system I have is everthing which is in that link), trouble is that the device I have for converting the video to the computer, currently only works well under windows, and doesn't appear to support colour at the resolution that the camera is running at (which appears in colour if plugged directly into the telly).

Basically, I am not sure that USB is the way to go here.

 

[Wheels]

CP funny u mention that, he has just bought 1 after admitting defeat in making one.