seeking vga cable extension advice

Hello,

I have a customer with the following desire. In a room 15' across, they are going to place a large flat screen TV on one wall. Opposite that will be a couch along with a desktop PC. They will also use their laptops from this couch.

The customer likes to use either the PC or their laptops to hook up a VGA cable to the TV screen and use that as a monitor.

I would like to provide them with a wall jack with a female VGA interface on both sides of the room. The jacks will be connected via a crawlspace.

Does anyone know of a jack connector which I can mount in a wall box for a VGA female interface? And how is the cable connected to the jack, by soldering it?

I know that it would be possible to run a pre-made cable into the wall and through the crawlspace but even that has it's challeges. For one, I do not like having a loose cable sticking out of the wall. Also, the house rests on what looks like had-hewn 10"x 10" beams intead of the uusual 10" x 12" x 2" board. As it is I will probably have to knock out some of the cinder block which makes up the foundation.

Anyway, I would appreciate any advice.

Thank you,

- Greg Knopf snipped-for-privacy@knopfnet.com

Reply to
greg t. knopf
Loading thread data ...

Without digging into it, myself, these folks probably have what you need, and maybe ideas. Get the paper catalog. It's more interesting than the web site.

formatting link
These people have lots of parts you might find interesting.

formatting link
There's always Black Box. Expensive but quality stuff and (the last time I called) very good technical advice from their "application engineers".

formatting link

As a general comment. Quality counts in long VGA wiring. When i did it for high-res (1200x???) ceiling-mounted video projectors it was obvious that the cheapo cables caused ghosting. A crappy drop cable from the VGA wall plate to the user's laptop would cause noticeable ghosting. The in-wall cable we used was specified by the A/V outfit that sold us all our gear. I don't recall what it was.

Depending on the length of the run and the capacitance rating of the cable you might have high frequency roll-off and video degradation.

Reply to
Al Dykes

greg t. knopf wrote in part:

I'd go pre-made. Easier than figuring out what to do. Strip the screws and tape up well after attaching the fish string to the _cable_.

Nor do I. Sandwich the end into a metal wallplate. Then provide patch-cords to take the wear. You might want to look at a powered video switchbox (or even one of the cute Iomega KVMs) to do amplification, but it probably isn't necessary for that short a run.

People do this all the time for conference-room projectors.

-- Robert

Reply to
Robert Redelmeier

I'd think you should be able to use a d-sub wall plate.. I think a monitor cable would fit in a DB9.

google 'dsub wall plate' and see if some of those results help you out.

-jr

Reply to
James Russo

Or you could just buy a wall plate and jack made for VGA connections (HD15), plenty of places sell them.

Reply to
none

Use a premade cable. Of the highest quality. Have a double female panel mount VGA plug on the wall plate. Provide a high quality double male VGA cable to go from the wall to the computer. I've soldered up VGA connectors, and it is a right PITA. Premade is the way to go, just pull the vga cable through the conduit before the rest of the cables. Also run some coax. Install a large enough conduit so that more cables can be added later.

--Dale

Reply to
Dale Farmer

Have people demonstrate that the cable works *before they put it in the wall unless they are prepared to reterminate on-site.

If you don't have a local source, I can recommend Black Box. I'd install a prefab cable made by BB, but I'd feel better if I could test it first, anyway.

formatting link

Reply to
Al Dykes

For a better price, and probably better quality, go to the source of all good video stuff.

formatting link
--Dale

Reply to
Dale Farmer

Just to add aniother source I would highly recommend is Extron

formatting link
They are not cheap, but they are probably among the highest quality you can buy (and worth it, if your budgets allows).

Reply to
none

Hello,

Thanks for all the advice. I think that I will have to go with a pre-made cable with a wall plate having a double female connection. That sounds like the most sensible thing to do.

My initial desire to run a 15-wire cable and then solder it was due to the fact that I have to drill through a good amount of solid wood to run the cable into the wall. I didn't make this part of the problem clear in my initial post since I was falling asleep while writing it.

The house is about 100 years old. I have to run from an interior wall (wood lathe, plaster & possible metal mesh and possibly wallboard over that) down to the crawl space through the 10" x 10" beam which the house rests on, over to an exterior wall. There I will probably have to knock a hole in the cinder block and use an auger at an angle to get through the beam & base board into the exterior wall. I had wanted to avoid a pre-made cable because of the size of the hole which will be needed for the connection. But I think that a pre-made cable would be the way to go.

Thank you for all of your good advice.

- greg knopf snipped-for-privacy@indy.rr.com

Reply to
greg t. knopf

Cabling-Design.com Forums website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.