USB twisted pair extension cable

Hi all! Today I want to tell you how to make a USB extension cable from twisted pair wire. The length of such an extension cord can reach 50 meters, in my case it is 15 meters. You can connect any USB device to it.

Required tools and materials


For work we will need:
  • plug and socket of a USB connector, you can use a plug from an old wire and remove the socket from unused equipment;
  • twisted pair cable of the required length, I used a 4-pair cable;
  • soldering supplies, preferably with a hair dryer;
  • sharp knife (scalpel).

USB twisted pair extension cable

Description of the manufacturing process


Let's deal with the plug first. Using a sharp knife, make slits in the rubber filling on both sides. The rubber should be cut through to the metal.
USB twisted pair extension cable

We heat the rubber shell with a soldering hairdryer until it softens and remove the plug from it.
USB twisted pair extension cable

We make the cuts as carefully as possible, since after soldering the “twisted pair” wires to the plug contacts, the shell can be put back on the glue.
Next, we open the petals of the metal lock holding the cable and clean off the layer of compound covering the contact tracks. You need to be careful here, I personally damaged one of the solder pads a little.
Let's start cutting the cable.After removing the insulation, we strip the ends of the wires on one side of the cable. When soldering the cable, you need to be especially careful not to mix up the order of the wires, otherwise the extension cord simply will not work.
USB twisted pair extension cable

So, we turn the plug with the front side facing us so that the plastic base on which the contacts are attached is at the top. We see four current-carrying paths that serve to connect to the socket contacts. We start counting from left to right:
  • the first contact is +5V power supply, we solder 3 wires to it - blue, orange and white-orange;
  • the second contact is –Data, solder the white-green wire here;
  • third - +Data, solder green;
  • fourth - power supply -5V, solder brown, white-brown and white-blue.

USB twisted pair extension cable

We twist the triple wires of the power circuits, tin all 4 resulting ends and solder them to the plug. Fill the solder joint with hot glue or sealant and clamp the cable with a metal lock.
USB twisted pair extension cable

USB twisted pair extension cable

Let's start stripping the second end of the twisted pair. We carefully study the pinout of the USB socket:
  • the first - wires of blue, orange and white-orange colors;
  • the second is a white-green wire;
  • third - green wire;
  • fourth - wires of brown, white-brown and white-blue colors.

USB twisted pair extension cable

In addition to the power circuits (+5V, -5V), it is necessary to solder a capacitor with a capacity of at least 1500 microfarads to avoid a drop in the supply voltage. We make the connection in accordance with the polarity of the capacitor - “+” to the 1st contact, “-” to the 4th.
USB twisted pair extension cable

All that remains is to fill the solder joint of the socket with hot glue or sealant. You can start testing. If you didn't make any mistakes when making connections, the extension cord should work.
USB twisted pair extension cable

This extension cord was made to connect an external antenna with an adapter.
USB twisted pair extension cable

USB twisted pair extension cable

The antenna is located at a distance of several meters, the adapter glows with a green light.
USB twisted pair extension cable

Conclusion


The cable I chose has 4 pairs, that is, 8 cores. You can use a cable with a different number of cores. When choosing, it is important to remember the following:
  • There can be at least 4 cores, according to the number of pins of the USB connector;
  • It is advisable to increase the cross-section of the power circuit wires by combining several wires, as I did.

Goodbye, good luck to everyone.

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Comments (9)
  1. Sergey K
    #1 Sergey K Visitors June 3, 2019 11:47
    4
    This is all somewhat suspicious, maybe it will work on protocol 1.1, the speed there is low, but it will be enough for a modem or Wi-Fi. But on the second... Well, it’s not for nothing that they sell special adapter boards to organize an extension cable on a twisted pair cable?!
  2. Guest Valery
    #2 Guest Valery Guests 11 June 2019 05:31
    2
    This is complete nonsense! Not a single printer works normally even with a 3-meter cable, but here there are 15, and even 50! Why not 150? Of course, you can use twisted pair as a power cable, but what does USB have to do with it? Were you simply too lazy to install a power supply? Rating 0 out of five!
    1. Guest Alexander
      #3 Guest Alexander Guests 18 September 2019 13:16
      1
      Buy normal cables for the printer. For example, VCOM/ works for me on 5m. And also a 10m extension cable from Vitukha connected to a modem-router
      1. Alexei
        #4 Alexei Guests 28 January 2021 20:15
        0
        For a printer - a print server, cheap and cheerful. Namely, USB is only for all kinds of exotic things.
    2. Artyom
      #5 Artyom Guests March 7, 2021 01:30
      1
      before writing this, did you first try to solder such a cable???
  3. Igor
    #6 Igor Guests 12 August 2019 21:24
    4
    thanks to the author! I made the same one for myself, 10 meters long, works great! I used it to install a 3G modem on the roof of a country house, the connection is now stable.
  4. Peter
    #7 Peter Guests 19 January 2022 06:43
    1
    I made one today at 9 meters. The 8 GB Transcend flash drive does not slow down in speed, it seems, compared to directly plugging it into the board. 20/12 MB/s read/write. I wanted to get by with one extension cord and hub. Active hub Ginzzu GR-487UAB. The Transcend flash drive dropped to 12-15/4-7, but the other flash drive dropped by only 1 MB for reading and 3.3 for writing. The keyboard and mouse did not work through the hub. The keyboard produces a series of spaces and other characters cyclically when typing. The mouse also freezes cyclically. Without a hub, the mouse and keyboard work. The old PS2 keyboard falls off completely when using the USB adapter, both in the hub and without it. And the USB keyboard is buggy. I didn’t notice any difference in the operation of the hub with or without a power supply.
    You will have to buy another 9 m of shielded twisted pair cable for 15 rubles/m. and make 2 wires instead of one. I take the PC outside the wall to escape the noise.That's why I'm doing an extension. Before that I tried soldering using a different scheme. The blue pair is for data, the rest are all white for minus, all colored ones are not plus. It worked like this. The only configuration in which the Lumix camera worked using such an extension cord. In the other two scenarios, it is rejected by the system. I also tried making 2 extension cords on 1 wire. I brought out 2 sockets. Blue and green pairs for data. 2 pairs for power supply to each outlet. One socket had a green wire. She worked. Worse than when I did a single on blue. The blue pair was glitchy and nothing was connecting at all. There was interference, which means that 2 USBs cannot be crammed into 1 pair.
  5. Sergey Yakubovich
    #8 Sergey Yakubovich Guests 13 December 2022 18:28
    1
    Thanks to the author of the article. I made an extension cord for the modem from a twisted pair cable to the roof. Everything works great. More than 5 meters you need to solder the capacitor as described in this article. I bought the twisted pair cable in a specialized store so that it was of high quality. Cheap Chinese cables may not work. Don't listen to those who write that it won't work. Everything works, people just have an evil tongue.
  6. Yaroslav
    #9 Yaroslav Guests 26 May 2023 05:10
    2
    Thank you very much to the author of the article! I made such an extension cord from unnecessary trash and everything works stably and doesn’t even get hot. 10 meters of patch cord with USB connectors for a webcam: normal flight.