My drumkit lives quite far away from where my computer is and neither one can really be moved. It’s a separate live room / control room type of scenario.
I tried using standard powered USB repeaters that I already and found it doesn’t work, the Evans Portal just rapidly connects and disconnects. Then I realized USB over ethernet might be a better solution since apparently that’s the go-to standard whenever you need very long cable runs.
My question is, what are the data and power requirements of the Evans Portal so that I know what to buy, and would this even work, before I waste money on gear just to find out it doesn’t?
I’m surprised that the powered USB extender didn’t work. How long of a run are you trying for? In my experience, sometimes with those cables you have to flip the USB-C cable over. It’s one of the quirks with USB, that some usb-c cables are not reversible even though the plugs are. I’d try again and try all the different permutations of the cables.
I don’t have any experience with USB over ethernet, but I have seen some of those systems and they look cool. I don’t see why that wouldn’t work, either.
The Portal uses USB 2.0 over USB-C. For power, I don’t remember the specs off the top of my head, but I’d strongly recommend using the included power brick to power the portal.
It works with one USB extender (to the extra computer across the room… which turned out not to be powerful enough to run SP with all 7 sensors) but not two. Having to repeat it twice to get to my most powerful PC in the control room seems to heavily degrade the signal to the point the computer can only detect that there’s a device connected intermittently.
I believe it’s about a 35 foot run. 25 foot cables don’t reach and 50s are clearly excessive, so I’m guesstimating here.