Anyone had any experience with a USB Repeater Cable, good or bad?

__________________

Very moderate experience! I bought 5m one to connect my WMR 200 to my PC, using WD software. This is an active cable. The results were interesting because I had a lot of data dropout until I connected the cable to a different usb port on the PC. I was told that it's best to use the port nearest the PSU and not to connect via a hub. I abandoned the idea of using my PC to run WD software because it is just didn't run all that smoothly, nothing to do with the cable though.

I am still using the usb repeater cable to connect my external HDD, and no problems at all. Yes, that drive feels a little slower than my internal drives, but maybe that is it's normal performance. On the other hand I do sometimes get the msg "This device can perform better if connected to a usb 2.0 port", so maybe it's performance is not at optimum. I have measured the output voltage at 4.9v, a slight drop from that at the PC itself.

There are quite a few usb repeater cables around, including the more expensive Belkin one. I bought a lesser known brand from Ebay! You may find it advantageous to take a look at a forum that is more dedicated to PC's.

I use a passive 3m cable to connect my weather webcam (A Tesco cheapie) and that also works fine. If you are using an extension cable of 5m+ you really do need an active one, from what I have read.
Hope this helps in some way.

I'm looking at getting one for a printer...

Does 'active' mean they need a separate power supply or do they use the 5v of the USB?

the belkin ones are good - i have one and it works OK - the power is usually taken from the PC - they call them active as there is a small amplifier in the large ( ish ) socket on one end

__________________

Thank you for your replies. I was thinking of getting one to connect my computer and weather station console. The one provided by Oregon is only about 3 feet. I would like a bit more flexibility.

Alan.

__________________

I have been doing a little research on this and it seems there is another way....

Basically I was all set to buy a 10m long one with repeater, but then I noticed that the site had stopped selling them due to some 'terrorist risk problems' - don't ask me to explain, I don't know any more than that.

Well, what I found was that you can use a 5m maximum length with USB2, insert an hub at the end and then run another 5m long USB cable from that. It seems to suggest that it can be done 5 times, so 25m in total, if you have enough spare USB hubs. The repeater is just the equivalent of a hub, but built into the cable.

I had a spare line powered hub, so I bought 2x 5m cables, tried it and it worked fine - though 5m was just enough to get my printer where I wanted it and the second 5m one will sort out my weather station quite nicely.

Warning ! - 'bus' powered hubs should NOT be serially extended !!

See:

USB hub - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is mainly a 'power' consideration, so if your device is self-powered and only using the USB for data - 25m is a viable length.

__________________

Good point....

The rating of the 5v DC output from a PC's USB port is 500mA maximum, so the total load of hubs and/or what ever plugs into them must never exceed that. I would guess at the load of the electronics in each hub to be a matter of a few milliamps - say 10 to 50mA.

I do know that my Watson weather station switches over from internal batteries to drawing its current from the USB supply.