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I have a keyboard that is great when it works but the USB connection is a real PITA and I need to add a new wire (actually 2 are needed). The current one has 1 wire with 2 usb cables inside and each cable has 4 wires and a grounding shield. The cables come out of the keyboard and the connection has gotten weak and I think there is a break in the cable somewhere b/c the power goes out (lighted backlight) and squeezing the cable in certain spots gets it to come back on. I'd scrap this keyboard but it was really expensive and they don't make it anymore.
I've seen USB being run over cat 5/6/7 at 50+ ft with a powered extender.
I was thinking of putting a female RJ45 connector on the keyboard and then another female RJ45 -> 2 USB connectors to connect to the motherboard. I'd then use a network cable in between the two connectors and if the cable goes bad again I can just replace it.
It looks like there are 22g or 23g stranded & shielded cat7/7a cable available and I suspect that the stranded wire would be much better as it is more flexible than solid wire.
The only thing that will be powered by this keyboard would be a very small USB RF receiver for the mouse (~25ma I beleive). The keyboard says it needs a 500ma or greater port (I suspect this is also for helping power USB drives in the on-board hub), so there might be a total of 500ma on two of the pairs.
As far as the female connection on the keyboard I planned to just cut out a mounting hole and epoxying a RJ45 jack in place.
Does anyone know of a reason this wouldn't work? I know the outer "jacket/shell" of a USB connector is grounded to the wire shield on the cable (if it has one, the original cable has this), so I guess I could connect the shielding of each twisted pair to a ground connection if that is necessary.
I've seen USB being run over cat 5/6/7 at 50+ ft with a powered extender.
I was thinking of putting a female RJ45 connector on the keyboard and then another female RJ45 -> 2 USB connectors to connect to the motherboard. I'd then use a network cable in between the two connectors and if the cable goes bad again I can just replace it.
It looks like there are 22g or 23g stranded & shielded cat7/7a cable available and I suspect that the stranded wire would be much better as it is more flexible than solid wire.
The only thing that will be powered by this keyboard would be a very small USB RF receiver for the mouse (~25ma I beleive). The keyboard says it needs a 500ma or greater port (I suspect this is also for helping power USB drives in the on-board hub), so there might be a total of 500ma on two of the pairs.
As far as the female connection on the keyboard I planned to just cut out a mounting hole and epoxying a RJ45 jack in place.
Does anyone know of a reason this wouldn't work? I know the outer "jacket/shell" of a USB connector is grounded to the wire shield on the cable (if it has one, the original cable has this), so I guess I could connect the shielding of each twisted pair to a ground connection if that is necessary.
