USB hub with network connectivity

[Philip Benson]

At the moment I use a laptop in my dome to connect mount, cameras etc.  I have a Powerline network plug connected to my laptop which I then use to use to 'Remote Desktop' to my laptop from the PC indoors.   Ideally though I want to be able to connect directly to the mount, cameras etc in the dome without taking the laptop outside. 

I have tried the Belkin Network USB hub and while that works to a degree I keep getting 'device disconnected' errors coming up on the mount connection and my DMK camera never seems to connect correctly.  I wondered if that has something to do with the cable length.    Has anyone got any solutions which might work better?

[D4N]

USB is a pain isn't it?

There are some very expensive networked USB hubs but there is no guarantee that they will work with all of your devices.

I'm currently working on improving my setup, I got myself a raspberry pi, this can run an indi server and communicate with my laptop over wifi.

So far I've got it so the pi can handle the guiding on its own using linguider or forward it to ekos running on my laptop.

It can take quite a while to compile software on the pi but it is surprisingly powerful

It is also able to forward USB ports over the wifi but as always with USB not all devices will support this.

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[cathouse42]

Are all the devices able to be powered from the hub or do they require a power adaptor (or multiple USB ports to get more power).  Sounds like power is the issue either from not enough or too long a distance if it is being randomly disconnected.

You can get those Y splitter USB cables that deliver more power from multiple ports (some USB Hard Drives use these), or active powered cables for longer distances.  Some USB hubs also have higher voltage ports for charging devices. Try using for those if it is a power problem.

Is the hub itself powered or from the Laptop port powered, if it is not a powered hub, you may want to consider a powered hub as the laptop USB port may not be able to drive all of the hub connections.

[D4N]

I think network USB hubs by their very nature have to be powered hubs, it is still possible to overload them if you connect many high load appliances though.

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[cathouse42]

A device disconnecting randomly usually is a power issue. Ie., not enough.  I have a USB HD that does the same thing, just beeps beeps randomly until it gets enough power, so I use two ports to power it, strangely (or not really) enough I have another USB HD , same make, different capacity, takes less power and works fine. It doesn't take much difference to cause the devices to go awol.

Generally the more amperage available the better (and not less than it needs), it will draw what it needs, but the voltage must be the same.