Bob. This was a State bid job so I have to stick to the original plan. I studied the blueprints ahead of the bidding but they did not detail the exact cable path. It turned out much further than I figured. Anything I add now like a switch it more cable is on me. Fiber would just be too prohibitive.
Hey @GCumbee I have a triple run of Cat5e in our install each 135 feet long, I should be able to patch them back and forth to test length. I will probably be there Saturday to relocate a projection screen, I should have time to run a few tests.
Before you ask, the triple run was for flexibility, before we found out about the AB168 we thought we might need to run the desks extender port to the stage for the additional AR84 and of course I wanted a spare for all kinds of reasons, guests with their own digital rig, running our Dante network to stage for all kinds of reasons, etc. This is for our GLD system but I have a QU16 I can hook to our AB168 for the test.
Mrvoltz: not sure what you mean. 135 I have done before. In fact over 200. Are you saying you can series all those together. That would be 405’.
Ah, in that case a standard GigE cheap switch at a convenient location would do the job. Given that they can come in under £20/$20 it shouldn’t bite too hard.
For a little more you could consider a PoE injector and a PoE powered Ethernet repeater. They are generally much slimmer (to fit in a conduit), but significantly more costly (triple figures, rather than double)
Yes I mean I can send it back and forth series through all and I have a small gig switch I use for my Dante network to try if it needs a boost. They are three parallel lines so jumper them and presto 405’ plus jumpers, and for other lengths I have other cables too.
That’s great. Let me know what you find out. Thanks.
Bob. Looking into what’s available as for POE injector and buffer.
I am currently running the 405’ with my GLD with no issues and all my sends go through the AR2412 and the source I’m listening to is connected to the AB168 50 feet from the 2412 but I’m assuming the 2412 is acting like a hub for that. Will set up my QU16 and try something next. This is without an additional switch.
The Cat5e it STP.
Wow. That’s great.
I am currently running the 405’ with my GLD with no issues and all my sends go through the AR2412 and the source I’m listening to is connected to the AB168 50 feet from the 2412 but I’m assuming the 2412 is acting like a hub for that. This is without an additional switch. The Cat5e it STP.
Works with QU16 too.
Nice info, and that length is with additional jumpers which do degrade signal quality. Do you have more reels to insert? Would be interesting to see at which limit problems begin to evolve.
I’d still vote to go for shielded Cat6/7 for that length in a production environment.
Ok I was having trouble posting but not sure how it double posted.
It was actually over 425 feet, sorry didn’t think to plug in my 150’ duracat to take it well over 500, maybe next time. I am curious now.
The main stagebox acts as a switch, so the lengths reset for the expander.
This supports the theory of collision domain based limits defining the 100m limit, and that his wouldn’t matter for dSnake, because it’s not a collision domain.
Yes @Andreas I do have another duracat that is either 100 or 150 feet long, also I have a couple 50 foot regular cat5 patch cables for variety.
Well finally got the system up and running. The CAT 6 shielded run turned out about 250’ and then the Jackreel cable is 100’ So at approx 350’ it seems to work ok. I have only tried 1 mic so far so haven’t strained it with multiple I/O. Will know more when we setup their first show.
I don’t imagine that the actual audio makes a blind bit of difference
Not the audio content but several dozen RF emitting devices (i.e. mobile phones) may make a difference. But 350’ shouldn’t be an issue at all (dSnake on AR2412 is still specified for 120m/400’).
I hope so. This is an AB168 but in theory should act the same. I plan to borrow a Fluke meter that reports cable length and test it. My tester doesn’t do that.