IDE cable length
I know this is a question that pops up a lot in CarPC questions, but I wanted to get some info from people with experience in the matter. I have a DVD-ROM as part of my CarPC, but I want to mount it in my dash, while the board is in the back seat. I figured I could do this with a 4' IDE cable, but will I suffer a lot of data loss problems? Most say you can't make it any further than 18' before there are problems...
This has been covered many times before. Use the search feature to look around.
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Aaron Cake
London, Ontario, Canada
Player: Cyrix 200, 32MB RAM, 10.2Gig Quantum HD, Onboard EtherNet/Sound/Video, Custom Lexan Case, Arise DC-DC, Win95 Kernal w/Custom Player
Car: '86 Mazda RX-7 w/Basic Performance Upgrades
Player: Pentium 166MMX, Amptron 598LMR MB w/onboard Sound, Video, LAN, 10.2 Gig Fujitsu Laptop HD, Arise 865 DC-DC Converter, Lexan Case, Custom Software w/Voice Interface, MS Access Based Playlists
Car: 1986 Mazda RX-7 Turbo (highly modded), 1978 RX-7 Beater (Dead, parting out), 2001 Honda Insight
"If one more body-kitted, cut-spring-lowered, farty-exhausted Civic revs on me at an intersection, I swear I'm going to get out of my car and cram their ridiculous double-decker aluminium wing firmly up their rump."
I thought it had, so I did search around, but didn't find anything...
OK, ive been on this forum for over a year now and latley some of the members have decided not to help the newbies and just to tell them 'go search for it' If that was the attitude i got when i first started out i probably wouldnt have finished my project. So i know it gets a little annoying to hear the same questions over and over again, but try to be helpful and not condescending by just saying 'go look for it'
As for the question.
I know of at least one case where a guy got an ide cable succesfully extended to 15' but i also know of manymore examples where people have failed. If you search under something like 'making your own ide cables' or something like that you may be able to find more info. If you are running a regular pc, one with expansion slots that is, you may want to look into a pc-firewire card and then convert your ide drive into a firewire compatible one. this might take 100-250 dollars depending on what you buy but it may work
I've searched the board and found that most people say that the "limit" is about 4 feet or so without losing data. I've also read that "if you have USB ports in your machine, you can buy an external IDE case that uses a USB connection." If you find any solutions, I'd be glad to hear them.
~2000 Impala LS
~Soon to be (among) the best in car audio...
Use a buffer amplifier,for example the 74LS244 line driver.It works fine,and let you extend your IDE cable to about 3 meters.You will need about 7 of these drivers.This is the only safe and best way to extend the cable.By the way,it will also work for these who need to extend their LCD cable.You can download its datasheet from http://www.moorpark.cc.ca.us/~erics/elm27/
Enjoint life!
Dima: Can you not extend your LCD connections too far if you're using ribbon cable?
pacochi: If you have USB I know there are people like Startech who do make the IDE-USB external drives. www.startech.com
95 Honda Civic DX Coupe - In Progress
mp3civic site
dima..does this definitely work..how much are they..and whre can I buy some?
also...will it work with a dvd-rom (eg. slot-load dvd rom in dash/mp3 box in trunk!!)
thanx in advance.
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---go terps
MykolJay
dima, i did not see pics for the buffer amplifiers or prices on that link. do you know how much they are and where i can get them??
thanks
aladdin
For all these who are worring about it - it defenetly works! I did it to my LCD and to my CD-ROM unit...my LCD cable is now 4 m length in my car,and cd's cable length is 3 m.
Extendind the IDE ribbon cable is more complicated because it has 40 pins,so you need to do it very carefully.
Sproggy explains in his site how to use it with LCD: http://sproggy.mp3car.com/display.html
If you want to use it with IDE cable to CD or DVD it's very similar.The buffer has 8 inputs,so to use it with IDE cable you will need 5 of it(5x8=40 pins).
About the prices: I didn't buy it online, I bought it from electronic's components store.It cost me 1$ each.
I'm not sure,but I think you can buy it online here:
http://www.web-tronics.com/webtronics/ls244.html
[This message has been edited by Dima (edited 11-27-2000).]
Enjoint life!
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