IDE cable length

TheDingo · 11-26-2000, 03:36 AM

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...

Aaron Cake · 11-26-2000, 02:11 PM

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

TheDingo · 11-26-2000, 04:52 PM

I thought it had, so I did search around, but didn't find anything...

Aladdin · 11-27-2000, 12:17 AM

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

pacochi · 11-27-2000, 12:33 AM

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.

Dima · 11-27-2000, 01:37 AM

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/

schrodos · 11-27-2000, 01:57 AM

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

mykolJay · 11-27-2000, 02:49 AM

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

Aladdin · 11-27-2000, 04:02 AM

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

Dima · 11-27-2000, 10:17 AM

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).]

Aaron Cake · 11-28-2000, 11:57 AM

Aladdin, TheDingo: I just searched the board for "ide cable", and turned up 78 matches. The matched topics included "IDE Cable Lengthening", "How long can cables be?", "In-dash CDROM", "IDE Cable Length??" and sevaral others. Most contained an answer to this question. So, again, search before you ask. The reason is simple. People don't like answering the same questions over and over again. If they are asked, participation in the board will drop, and we will loose most of the "old-timers" that are the ones who provide all the answers. I've seen it happen in forums, mailing lists, and USENET newsgroups before, and it seems to be showing the signs of starting here.

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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

schrodos · 11-28-2000, 01:35 PM

Just so people know, I've run 15 feet parallel cable up to the front and then 10 feet of 20pin ribbon cable up to my rearviewmirror and with a few software tweaks, I have no garbage in the display.

TheDingo · 11-30-2000, 01:56 PM

Just dropped by the local Fry's and found that they were selling IDE cables as long as 5'! I went ahead and grabbed one. I'm gonna try to hook up the DVD-ROM end to end tonight and run some heavy duty benchmarks and ripping programs to see if I get any data loss.

DJ · 12-01-2000, 11:00 PM

schrodos:

why did you run a cable to your rear view mirror?? ?? ??

//dj

schrodos · 12-02-2000, 02:08 AM

Well not actually my rearview mirror. I have my LCD right above it.

Although, I saw one guys audio setup where he had a flip down rearview mirror and his eq was in there. That was cool.

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