ASI174mm with 5 meter USB3.0 cable

jan koet

After studying all the specs of the new Sony IMX174 sensor last few weeks, I got very enthusiastic about the new ASI174MM camera, so I bought one last week as a supplement to my DMK21AU618 and I expect the ASI-camera to act as my ‘workhorse’. I got the ASI174MM running in combination with Firecapture, which is new to me. No big issues so far, everything runs smooth.

Point is, when I run the camera, filterwheel and telescope, I am sitting a few meters apart and separated from my telescope. With the old DMK21AU618 camera, I always used an extra 5 meter USB cable (so about 7 meters in total). Though I bought for this purpose a 5 meter USB2.0 repeater cable, the DMK-camera also worked very well on cheap standard USB 2.0 cables (5 + 2 meters!).

With this knowledge, I bought a high quality 5 meter USB3.0 cable (USB A female – USB A male, 5 Gb/s superspeed), but a total length of 7 meters (including the ±2 meter cable that comes with the camera) seems a bit too much, as the camera is not recognized. Both USB 3.0 ports work fine and also the 5m USB cable is not to blame; the DMK21AU618 works without any problems on it (on all the USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports). However, when I plug the ASI174MM in the cheap 5,0 m USB2.0 cable (so again about 7 m in total) and into the USB 2.0 port, the camera is directly recognized and runs without any problems (of course with a low framerate) in Firecapture. Also the 5 meter USB2.0 repeater cable works without hesitation.

So I am a bit confused. With 7 meters of cheap USB 2.0 cable and on the USB 2.0 port the ASI174MM works fine, but with a high quality USB 3.0 and 5 meter extension cable on a USB3.0 port, the camera does not work and is not recognized. Finally I tries the camera with the extra 5 meter USB3.0 cable on the USB 2.0 port and the camera works fine now! (But still on a low frame rate).

Questions:

- Does this problem have something to do with the high frequency rate of the USB 3.0 camera?

- Should or can I use a 5 meter repeater USB3.0 cable?

- What is the maximum length of a USB 3.0 cable that can be used on the camera without using a repeater?

- Something else I missed?

- What is your experience and advise?

Kind regards, Jan Koet

riklaunim

Lack of power is probably an issue with very long cable.

Sam@ZWO

this is because USB 3.0 is 10 times faster than USB2.0

so it has a more strictly requirement of the length and quality of the cable

usually the cable longer than 5 meters is not reliable for USB3.0

so you should try a directly connect 5 meters of USB3.0 A-B cable at first.

if you want to use a repeat, you should try 5 meters active cable

such like this one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Tripp-Lite-5-meter-16-ft-USB3-0-Super-Speed-A-A-Extend-Cable-USB-A-M-F-USB-/231206295688?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35d4f81888

hope these info helps

jan koet

Thanks, I already suspected this is the problem. I shall order a 5m repeater cable and probably a USB A-B plug (http://www.allekabels.nl/usb-30-kabel/4545/1145737/usb-30-b-verloopstekker.html).

Sam@ZWO

Jan Koet wrote:
Thanks, I already suspected this is the problem. I shall order a 5m repeater cable and probably a USB A-B plug (http://www.allekabels.nl/usb-30-kabel/4545/1145737/usb-30-b-verloopstekker.html).

that's good