VGA over Cat-5 ethernet

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By jstriegel
Posted 2007/09/03 @ 8:31 pm
Category Electronics

If you’ve ever needed to place a VGA monitor further than the standard 6 foot cable allows, you may be familiar with some of these problems:

VGA cables are expensive
Several cables chained together affects signal quality
Running a VGA cable through conduit is pretty difficult

You can avoid a lot of these problems by making a couple VGA to Cat-5 adapters. This will let you run standard, cheap, easy-to-pull ethernet cable between your computer and video display. The twisted pair helps reduce signal loss, though it doesn’t work quite as well as the long-run shielded VGA cables. Unless you need to extend your display to over 50 feet, this might be a much easier and more cost-effective way to do things.

VGA over Cat-5 ethernet cable – Link

BY jstriegel

In the Maker Shed

4 Responses to VGA over Cat-5 ethernet

Julian_Calaby on September 3rd, 2007 at 10:17 pm said:

You might be able to get a little more mileage (yardage?) out of this idea with a little more work:

By using a simple circuit to combine the horizontal and vertical sync signals into a composite sync signal (searching for vga2rgbs will find you such a circuit) you would be able to have another ground wire in the cable – which would provide a little more shielding.

Also, some monitors support using a composite sync signal as is, without having to split it up again, eliminating the need for a splitter circuit at the monitor end.

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yhtomit on September 21st, 2007 at 4:18 pm said:

Are there commercial versions of such a thing available? Seems like something I’d like to spend a few (not *that* many) dollars. My soldering skills are … weak. No need to get into exactly how weak; weak enough that I can say there’s no need to get into exactly how weak.

But Boy, it would be nice to have a 2d monitor 20 feet (I could have a screen for the Daily Show downstairs ).

timothy

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Pjhaynes on June 17th, 2008 at 7:42 am said:

This worked like a charm! thanks i was looking all day for this after i needed a VGA run to my kitchen wall from inside a cabinet.

Thanks again.

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robert on January 6th, 2009 at 4:20 pm said:

http://www.vgaextend.net has them for sale

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