How far can you run parallel port cables?

Five metres is not a problem for either serial or parallel. For anything more than that I'd be looking to good quality, shielded cable, however.

Ken

printer,

anything

however.

You only guessed didn't you. The Specs for parallel say 2 metres and for RS 232 50 metres. After that they may work but don't expect much support.

--
John G

Wot's Your Real Problem?

Much over 10 feet with parallel and you'll have problems. I once tried to run my old HPIII at about 14 feet with a high quality cable and the printer was erratic. I had the cable shortened and moved the printer and it was OK.

>

exerpt from

Q. What is the "specified" maximum length of a parallel printer cable for a PC?

A. There are two kinds widely used parallel port printer cables for PCs. The old "standard" IBM Printer cable and the newer IEEE 1284 bi-directional cable commonly sold today. The old IBM printer cable was a rather loose standard having its roots with cables originally designed for Centronics printers. It was uni-directional from the PC to the printer and had a

25-pin male DB25 connector at one end and a 36-conductor male Centronics connector at the other end. The "standard-issue" cable was six feet. The maximum cable length was commonly stated as 15 feet. I have operated printers with old 20-foot IBM PC cables and some, not many, PC/printer combinations will work with a quality 25-foot cable. There are devices which can extend this length significantly.

Commonly available IEEE 1284 cables have a 1284 Type A, 25-pin male DB25 connector at one end and either the older 1284 Type B, 36-conducor male Centronics connector or the newer 1284 Type C, 36-conductor Mini-Centronics connector at the other end and are available in 6, 10, 15, 20, and 30 ft lenghts. The specification also calls for various cable configurations with different connector genders. The maximum specified length of a IEEE 1284 cable cable is 10 Meters (approx. 30 feet) for data transfers at rates up to 2 Mhz (of course, this maximum requires that the ports at both ends of the cable meet the IEEE 1284 spec as well as the cable). IEEE 1284 cables should work with older IBM printer ports (SPP = Standard Printer Port) and uni-directional printers.

hope this helps regards Jeff

"Chaos Master" schreef in bericht news: snipped-for-privacy@news.individual.net...

printer,

Parallel is limited by the cable capacitance. You can find printer cables up to 25 feet or 7.6M. Serial can be run for very long distances depending on the bit rate. For 9600 bps, it should work for 150 feet or

45m.

Ask this in the more appropriate newsgroups comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc or similar.

No, it is not. For serial, see URL

For parallel IEEE1284:

Specifications IEEE1284 Support Maximum Cable Distance: 5 meters (or 16.5 feet) Maximum Data Transfer Rate: 2MBytes / sec. .. etc.

I ran 20-foot priter cables without any problems. They're cheap. just a fewe dollar more than the standard 6-foot ones, just give them a try. Otherwise, there are sets of connectors for paralle ports that allow you to run normal phone cable between PCs and printers over much longer distances, $30 or so for a kit. Ultimately, get something like JetDirect and use ethernet, but rather more expensive unless it's already built in to the printer.

On the basis that I've run, and seen it done by others, to 5 metres without trouble. So yes, I didn't look it up, but it'll work, although maybe, as you imply, by the grace of God.

Ken

without

you

In the past I've done remote display (very big display ;-) ) connected do the parralel port. I didn't use special drivers: 74HCT595 as the reciver only. It is working uses 4 or 5 bits of the parralel port. The distance between PC and remote display is about 25 meters. I know, it isn't a piece of art of electronic, but it is still working ;-) Bit rate is about 2kbps

Jacek

On Thu, 8 Jul 2004 04:57:29 -0700, "Watson A.Name - \"Watt Sun, the Dark Remover\"" found these unused words floating about:

If you buy good cable, not the "el-cheapo" at Worst Buy ... you can go much more in a 'real world' enviornment.

Currently I'm running 35, 25 25 and 15 feet to a switch routing at a central printer location, then 6 feet more to the each of the printers (5). the HP, one of the fussiest printers, doesn't complain!

[snip]

Thanks for the info.

[]s

-- © Chaos Master. |"These wounds won't seem to heal Posting from Brazil. | This pain is just too real

| There's just too much that time can't erase" (most often offline... ) | -- Evanescence, "My Immortal"

OK. Thanks to all those that helped.

-- © Chaos Master. |"These wounds won't seem to heal Posting from Brazil. | This pain is just too real

| There's just too much that time can't erase" (most often offline... ) | -- Evanescence, "My Immortal"