Kinect 2.0: problem when trying to extend the cable

General TouchDesigner Discussion
1

Hello TouchDesigner community,

for an installation I am trying to put together, I need to have one Kinect 2.0 about 10m away from a computer.
Ideally I would like to have the Kinect 20m away from a computer, but 10m could potentially do the job as well.

Does anybody know and have tested a reliable/robust way to have a Kinect 2.0 at some distance from a computer?

I have purchased one of these cables (mwave.com.au/product/alogic … mf-ab88755), and it didn’t work. I had no signal coming in my computer from the Kinect.
To be precise, I had a distorted image coming through for about half a second, and that was it.
I have tested the 20m cable with a USB mouse, and the cable was working fine.

After reading online that some people had issues trying to extending a USB 3.0 signal to more than 15m, I have returned the 20m cable, and swapped for a 10m one, same brand and type just shorter. (mwave.com.au/product/alogic … mf-ab88744), and again no data at all coming from my Kinect.

I can definitely confirm that the Kinect works fine when connected to my computer, and I have also tried the 10m extension cable with a different Kinect, and still no data whatsoever coming through.

There’s a little note on the extension cable packaging that says that for some applications, it is possible to inject power in the USB cable itself, which in fact has a little power connector on the female end of the cable. Will try that on Monday, however I am not sure what sort of voltage, type of connector or polarity I am supposed to provide, and I couldn’t find any documentation online.

I understand that this isn’t a specific TouchDesigner related question, but I am trying to get a sense if anybody else tried to have a Kinect away from a computer, and if a solution was found.

cheers,
Fausto

2

The 2 solutions I’ve found to work are the firenex line of active repeaters, and this fiber optic solution

ntcdistributing.com/usb-3-0 … t-version/

3

For the price of fiber or extenders for Kinect V2, you could build a small pc and touchOUT the parameters needed.

This is usually my method and I then remote into the mini PC.

4

Hi
we extend to more than 20m (only by using usb3 cable)
you can find specs by search in the facebook page.
I will try to find it.

We found it depend on
*board
*usb card
*active extender.

it was long amperic process…

5

I’ve successfully used this cable at the recommendation of the Microsoft Kinect v2 development team:
icron.com/products/icron-bra … ra-3001-15

As barakooda pointed out, other hardware components will affect your setup as well.

As a +1 to cvanhoose’s reply, depending on what kind of Kinect data you are seeking to use, it may be more economical to use a small PC such as a NUC to send data over a network. This works especially well if you only need tracking data.

6

4 years ago we used PCIE over fiber extenders from Adnaco with a USB3 PCIE Card. I believe it was the S1A - adnaco.com/products/s1a/

Chain:
Kinect v2 > Included USB3 Cable > USB3 PCIE Card > PCIE over fiber SEND board > 100m fiber > PCIE over fiber Receive (this is a PCIE card installed in your machine).

This works well because the USB3 run is a normal length, and to your computer it just looks like a normal USB3 PCIE card is installed. The PCIE extension is quite stable.

Do know, we did it this way because everything was getting sealed in a wall and needed to be reliable. That said we still had to have a dedicated machine for each Kinect v2 (this was a few years ago not sure if that limitation is still around) back in the server room.

If I had easy access to the remote Kinects I would try the NUC thing to get around aforementioned one kinect per touch pc limitation.

Cheers.

7

thank you everybody for the prompt help and for offering advice, I am considering some of the options mentioned and looking up the USB cables that were suggested. Some of those brands are not available in Australia and require shipping from US.
Having a laptop near the Kinect, and Touch OUT to another machine could be an option, but I would like to keep it as a last resource, mostly for aesthetic reasons.

Here my update:
today I have tried to connect the Kinect to a Mac, using the 10m extension cable that I purchased, and it worked straight away.
the Kinect data is coming to the Mac using a software called Processing.
That brings me to think that I can narrow down the problem to be due to the USB chipset mounted in the Windows laptop that I intend to use for my installation.

However, using mac unfortunately is not an option, since I need to work on skeleton tracking. I have tried to look up how to do skeleton tracking on mac, but the scenarios seem beyond my programming capabilities… and the TD Kinect node is not supported on Mac…

So, I went back to the Windows 10 machine that ideally I would like to use for this installation, and did some additional testing:
I went on Device Manager and the Kinect appears in the list of devices when it’s plugged in, when using its own cable and when using the 10m extension cable.
The 10m cable itself appears under Universal Serial Bus controllers; I have updated the drivers, but still nothing.

What it’s not clear to me, is that the Windows 10 machine can see the Kinect fine when plugged in directly (that means that the USB chipset that is mounted is fine). the Windows 10 machine can see the devices in the Device Manager, but it is struggling to see the Kinect when using the 10m extension.

Any idea?

8

This setup worked :
PC from 2014
Adapter: (this one worked the best by far than other more expensive options,connect additional power will help. )
siig.com/it-products/usb/ad … -pcie.html

cables ( worth trying more options):
amazon.com/SIIG-Active-Repe … -CB0711-S1

consider solve the problem with this optic cables :
corning.com/optical-cables- … ables.html

9

I’ve used these: amazon.ca/gp/product/B01FQ8 … UTF8&psc=1

Power it with any generic 5v micro USB cable/charger…

What it doesnt show you is that there is another board mid way down the cable, a second “repeater board”. This was a surprise to me as I was planning to feed the Male cable down a 1" conduit. I wasnt expecting a 2" chunk of plastic mid way.

The midway repeater seems to be the same board as what is in the receiver end.

I tried this too with success: amazon.ca/gp/product/B0179M … UTF8&psc=1

For these 5m ones, I succeeded in daisy chaining 2 of them together to get a 10m run with Kinect2. Chaining 4 of them together to achieve 20m may be possible, however likely less reliable/stable.

The fiber option seems appealing if reliability/stability is required.

10

I ran into this problem a while back and wasn’t able to invest in the repeater cables and such offered . It can be done with that stuff but it can very expensive.
For my issue I was able to access multiple computers so what i did is I sent data over a network to another touch designer session . Another words touch and a kinect on one computer put far away ,send that data to another computer with touch and imported all my information. You do need a fairly strong network for this plus more than one computers or laptops. It work for me . Latency depended on the strength of my network. different kinect in (top,chop) have different latency issues so depends on your project. If you need anymore help let me know , i can send you some samples.
cheers

p.s.
here is the company and the guy that set me up with a sytem if would of bite the bullet and set up a working extended cable setup. Note sure if he still wroks there but the company is.
Mark Lai
Newnex Technology Corporation
3041 Olcott Street, Santa Clara, CA 95054, USA
E-mail: markl@newnex.com

11

thank you all for your great support and for providing several different solutions, alongside specifying brands, models and links to gear that you have used to resolve this issue, I really appreciated that.

This time around, after trying two different types of cables from different manufacturers, testing a couple of USB 3.0 hubs I had hanging around, I was starting to run out of time.
I have then opted to having a small laptop near the Kinect, that sends OSC over ethernet to a another laptop that is doing the bulk of the of the work.

cheers and thanks again,