From: Milton Aupperle <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: April 21, 2009 3:25:58 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] firewire cables...

Hi Mark;

Frankly, the only way to know is if you try it out. It may manifest in different situations too. For example, if your running the cameras at high frame rates, it may run into issues where as at lower rates it might not.

And you are way out of spec with your cable distances, as you should never be over 4.5 meters without a repeater between them for FireWire 400 speeds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FireWire

I'm still curious why you wouldn't move the Mini and Screen closer to the Telescope rather than long data cables. It also makes it easier to achieve focus too when it's all beside you.

When your using it, you could get a card board box, put the mini and LCD inside it and then wrap the box in a plastic bag as a light rain / dew shield. It won't survive a monsoon or heavy rain but, it would give you some relief for a brief shower or dew.

That's what I plan on doing next year in the winter for my Laptop so I can image at -30° C or colder. The plastic bag should trap enough heat from the heating pad to keep the laptop from freezing up, which happened last winter several times when it dipped down to -38°C or -50°C with wind chill (the digital thermometer doesn't go any colder than -50°C).

HTH..

Milton

On 21-Apr-09, at 1:55 PM, Mark Gaffney wrote:

Hi Milton & others, I`m at present running a 10 metre 6p to 6p cable

from the firewire 400 port on my Mac Mini to a Unibrain repeater/hub

similar to this; http://www.unibrain.com/Products/p1394/FR400.htm

from that I have the ACC-01-2007 4.5 metre 6 pin to 9 pin locking

IEEE-1394a to 1394b cable from the PGR development kit going to my

Flea 2. I hope to also run a 3 metre 6p to 6p cable from the repeater/

hub to my TIS DBK 21 A F04.AS. My question is this; Can I extend the

cables running from the repeater/hub an extra 4.5 metres by adding a

male to female firewire extension cable to each of the cameras? The

extra length may be necessary when I move to my projected new

telescope pad in the front garden. I already have one of the 4.5 metre

extension cables but stopped using it a while ago when I had problems

with the long connection-this was before obtaining the Unibrain

repeater/hub. Mark.