As my new Epson beamer and Topfield PVR6000 (satreceiver) are placed a rather long distance from the RFX9600, can the (dual) emiter wires be extended to about 12 to 15 meters? What is the maximum extension for a good signal?
If not, is there another option (not another expensive RFX9600)?

Mike

I extended one of my emitter wires about 30 ft with no problem. I have an RFX9400 connected to a Xantec amplified connector box. The emitter I extended is attached to the ACB. Not sure if it's the same straight from the RFX unit.

For single emittor, i did go over 20m without any problem (using cat5 wires).
Else do a quick test ?

i know 20m on a daul emmitter fails :(

I extended a dual emitter about 100 feet once over Category 5E. I didn't have any problems. The longest distance I heard of was about 150 feet. You shouldn't have any problems.

Also, they make video baluns that can extend component and IR about 1,000 feet. The cost is about $75 per balun and about $150 for the set. All you need is a single Category 5E cable.

It can depend on the IR Code some have very short time period and these are usally the ones that start to fail first.

avainnovations any recommandations?

I have extended over cat5 20 M ~ 60 Feet.... I had to reverse polarity on a single emitter....

There are two issues with wire length. Voltage drop and noise pickup. Of these two voltage drop is probably the most significant. When using high power settings, I am not just referring to Philips extenders, but to any driver of IR emitters, the primary question is what voltage are they running at. Xantech uses 12 volts which gives them lots of voltage headroom, i.e can tolerate significant drops. Many drivers use 5 volts (TTL) and some are now starting to use 3.3 volts (CMOS). The lower the driver voltage the less tolerance to voltage drop over the cable.

I have never seen a noise problem. If you had to reverse an IR emitter it had nothing to do with line length it was just backwards. I have run several hundreds of feet with 12 volt drivers with no issues over 22-24 gauge wire. I have run about 50 feet with a 3.3 volt driver, and I am sure a 5 volt driver is somewhere in the middle, closer to the 3.3 volt experience.

You can generally increase the power at the driver. This is normally done by increasing the current in the line by lowering the series current limiting resistor built into the driver circuitry. Power loss is by the square of the current times the resistance. Voltage drop over a given length of wire is current x resistance per foot of wire x length of wire.

The bottom line is I always try and use a xantech amplified connecting block which uses 12 volts as the driving voltage and supplies more than enough power for runs that will exceed anything in a home.

In all cases where I was getting poor results it was things like, emitter not over receiver, emitter too powerful and swamped receiver (Receiver AGC could not handle the load), Too much interfering light in the IR spectrum; a mismatch on the wired input of some component. a bad or marginal IR pattern. If the pattern is proper it's duration should not be a determinant over longer wires

IR is not magic. It is at times frustrating, but when all is said is done it just has to be understood for what it is and how it works.

Thanks for your reactions and tips,

Mike

Great info! I have never created or extened an IR emitter wire and was wondering if there are any diagrams or steps that show how to do this?

Thanks!

You can easily splice in a length of wite lets say a pair of a cat 5 cable. Polarity counts so I suggest being careful that you do not in advertently cross the wires. A simple but not inexpensive way is to use a mono (or stereo) extension cable of the desired size. This cable will have a 1/8" jack on one end and a 1/8" plug on the other. Treat it as an electrical extension cord.

Some times the emitter wires are coded (white stripe) some times not. If they are not just be careful. You will not hurt anything if you cross the wires in error, it just won't work