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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
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.
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
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.
http://www.vgaextend.net has them for sale
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RedPark TTL iOS Cable Breakout Pack
Exclusively in the Maker Shed, this updated Redpark Breakout Pack for Arduino and iOS makes interfacing your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with the real world easy! This bundle includes the new RedPark TTL Cable for iOS so a TTL adapter (and soldering) is no longer required.
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