Qu to AR dsnake 350m

Sorry to crash the GLD forum however the topic I’m asking about is the dSnake…
I’m wanting to know if anyone has an idea how to connect a QU to a AR Stage box 350 metres?
Could this be done using A switch at each end?
Anyone got any ideas?

Hi Dave,

You have a couple of options:

  • Convert to fibre optics - use a Fast Ethernet (100BASE-TX) Layer 2 Cat5 to fibre converter, some tested solutions are listed here and here.
  • Put a couple of Fast Ethernet (100BASE-TX) Layer 2 switches in between. Make sure the max length of each cable is within 100m. See here.

Hope this helps.

I’ve done fibre - and depending on the switch (because at that point they tend to be managed) you need to be careful to disable protocol based options.

Simple GigE switches in a row should be OK - you’ll need 3 (four lengths of cable).
Those switches have to be full duplex, and preferably simple (else go around disabling protocol based features)

The 3 switches option will be cheaper, the fibre may well be more convenient, since you don’t need power at intermediate points on the run.

Thankyou for the reply.
I’ll factor all of this in when I research this today

Regards
NZdave

I should note that if you do run fibre then VLANs are perfectly acceptable - but I would avoid trunking (it gave us serious issues anyway)

This allows a data network (for remote control and maybe more) and the dSnake, and video links to be sent down the same fibre. The important factor is to have either masses of excess bandwidth, or the dSnake VLAN assigned high priority to reduce latency and jitter.

dSNake doesn’t saturate 100MBit from memory - so there is plenty of space in even a 1GBit fibre for sharing.