Laird Firewire Cables???

pywl

pywl

Active member
Hey guys, I am interested in getting one of the Laird Firewire cables. I have read post from Barry and a few others that say how good these cables are.

One thing that confuses me is that the cables go all the way up to 125ft. Do these cables not need a repeater to make it that distance? I mean I thought any cable over 30' needed a repeater to travel longer distances.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.
 
I have used a 35' cable with no problems; I tried a 50' and experienced unreliable performance. By the time you reach 125', I doubt that it would even come close to acceptable. You can use a repeater/hub, but most will require an external source of power (AC mains) so this may not work well in a fully mobile situation (assuming that is what you are trying to accomplish).
 
I haven't used one that long, 30' is the max I've used.

I believe they sell the 75' as not needing a repeater, and recommend a repeater above that length.

The Laird 75' is probably fine for camera use. You wouldn't want to try using that length with a 6-6 pin version and send power across it, that would probably be pushing the limits too far.
 
Barry_Green said:
I haven't used one that long, 30' is the max I've used.

I believe they sell the 75' as not needing a repeater, and recommend a repeater above that length.

The Laird 75' is probably fine for camera use. You wouldn't want to try using that length with a 6-6 pin version and send power across it, that would probably be pushing the limits too far.
Click to expand...
Barry, gotta link for these? Also, for camera use, do you mean 4-pin to 6-pin?
 
Mine is a 30-foot 4-to-6, yes. We used it for five weeks straight on a feature shoot and never had a hint of trouble.

I must say it's a bit risky, because the official IEEE1394 specification calls for a maximum cable length of 14.5 feet. So you can't just go using *any* cable, I'm sure Laird is using top-quality components and doing something to the cable to make sure it's reliable.

Here's the one I have:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/con...s&Q=&sku=284897&is=REG&addedTroughType=search

I see they have a 164' version now. 164'! I can't even imagine how they're doing it. Maybe it has integrated repeaters in it or something... I don't know...
 
on the page for the 164' it says:

•
Extended-Length


This cable has been designed specifically for extra-long cable runs.

Please note that Firewire cables longer than 30' (10m) require the use of a separate Firewire repeater, which boosts the signal to account for signal loss.
 
Max Wilson said:
on the page for the 164' it says:

•
Extended-Length


This cable has been designed specifically for extra-long cable runs.

Please note that Firewire cables longer than 30' (10m) require the use of a separate Firewire repeater, which boosts the signal to account for signal loss.
Click to expand...

I saw that, do you have to purchase a seperate repeater and does anyone know where to get one?
 
I saw that too, and thats one of the main questions I was wondering. It really makes it sound like a double negative (yes you can but no you cant).
 
pywl said:
I saw that too, and thats one of the main questions I was wondering. It really makes it sound like a double negative (yes you can but no you cant).
Click to expand...


I know, anyone got the skinny on this?
 
Laird sells firewire repeaters and mentions they must be used in pairs. However, they show the repeaters as being used to extend runs beyond 70 feet. In other words there are 70 foot lengths on their chart between repeaters.

Also they comment that its the power on a 6 pin that can't go beyond 15 feet and cables which go beyond that should only be used for media devices such as DV cams which typically have a 4 pin connection.

The price of thier repeaters are 99.95 ea.

http://www.lairdtelemedia.com/Produ...t=DATACON&prodClass=FIREAD&mfg=&search=0&off=

Or for their firewire cables up to 72 ft. http://www.lairdtelemedia.com/ProdL...cat=VIDEOCAB&prodClass=FIRECAB&search=0&off=0
 
Well from the diagram on the PDF file for the repeater and talking with Laird that any cable over 30' in length will need a repeater.

If you look at the PDF file for the repeater, you need two repeaters per cable. So you need a 3' cable from Camera to Repeater, the repeater, the 30-70 foot firewire cable (70' looks to be the max because that is as far as the repeater will push), then another repeater, then the 3' cable to Device (Laptop, PC, etc, etc...)

It doesnt look to be too cheap for a long cable run, but hey it beats tapes!

Barry, Is the 30' way to short for you or just a hassle? Is it workable or should we just break down and spend the cash on the extra length?

Thanks
 
When I got it, I thought the 30' would be perfect, but it did end up being a little frustrating. There were several times when I just wished it was another 20' longer. 30' is a nice long size, but we were using a 14' jib arm, and that right there would eat up half the cable length! 50' would be great, I can't imagine too many common circumstances where you'd need more than 70'. The convenience of the 30' (with no repeaters necessary, etc) is hard to argue with -- it's very convenient. If the 70' worked without repeaters then that would be the perfect solution, but apparently it doesn't.

So, to sum it up -- I have the 30', and it did work well. But there were many times when I wished we had a longer cable.
 
This thread has been dead for a while but it's still informative....

I'm getting DV Rack soon and I'm gonna get a pair of Laird repeaters. I read the PDF from the earlier link but I didn't see any specifics on the actual IEEE1394 interface on the repeater itself. According to the pics the repeater has two 6-pin ports....

My understanding is that a 3' 4-6 Firewire cable attaches the DVX to the repeater, then the long length of cable (70') runs between the two repeaters, and a 3' 4-6 cable from the last repeater into the Laptop.

Problem: the 70' cables are 4-pin to 4-pin, and according to the pics on the PDF, the Laird repeaters do not have 4-pin ports. So I assume that means I need a couple of 4-6 apapters in order to connect the 70' cable.

So if a person wanted to daisy-chain three lengths of 70' cable like the repeater advertises, he'd essentially need 4 repeaters and 6 adapters in addition to 3 70' cables.

Is this correct or am I missing something? Seems like a pretty expensive proposition. I'm gonna have a 30' and a 70' to be used with the repeaters for any shots that require a mobile camera, and a 15' cable for static setups (no repeaters).

Long winded, I know...just wanna make sure I've got all my bases covered before ordering all of the stuff.
 
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