i have 4 x Helios Dacs to a Star Tech USB mains powered hub i wish to run over Cat 5 to FOH 50m Cobra reel and again using Star Tech USB To Cat 5 extenders but seems to be very unstable to Dacs control any ideas to try , or how to get best way long cable runs
Thanks James
I have been considering this myself and I think I will likely put Macbook on stage and run a single KVM over IP back to the lighting desk. I think the APC40 should still work, but I haven’t tried it yet.
Both of these options seem a bit inadvisable to me! I would always at least want the computer near to me. If you can find a USB extender that works for you then great, but if you regularly use this kind of set up, I would definitely invest in some ether-dreams, they’re a significantly better option.
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Yea USB connectivity is not ideal in my experience. Not necessarily with lasers, but a good Ethernet network is far superior to usb extensions
Adam at Frickin Lasers runs Startech USB extenders to FB3s using stage boxes that he built. He runs some fairly major festival stages with that setup so I assume he’s worked the kinks out. You can find him in the Facebook Laserists group.
Up until now I’ve run a slightly weirder setup. I have a media rack backstage connected to FOH booth with an AV Access HDBT/USB/Audio extender over a CAT6 multi. Artnet and E-Stop run on separate channels. The media rack connects to a PoE switch and I have Etherdream stage boxes close to the heads with ILDA links. I have relays in the stage boxes to drive E-Stop over the ILDA connection. I’ve found the Etherdreams to be really reliable (they replaced Shownet interfaces which I found to be flakey).
Rob
Re the USB extension, bear in mind that Helios is a somewhat less tested piece of hardware, I certainly had some issues running multiples on a PC set up.
Re the ether dreams - glad they’re solid, I’ve rewritten the driver code multiple times now 
Using the stop over the ILDA is something I’ve done quite a lot, it’s a great option. But bear in mind that some lasers don’t implement the standard ILDA stop signal pins - even some EU manufacturers, looking at you Laser World! - so I’ve had to hack inside the lasers to route their internal interlocks through the ILDA socket.
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As a newbie, this is great advice. I couldn’t get a signal to my Helios over 40 feet of extension cables. I was able to get 20’ to work but I can see a noticeable lag. Long term I’m going to invest in art-net.
That’s cool, just to be clear Ether Dreams don’t use art-net but they do use a network protocol so can be connected using a normal network set up.
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