DIY: Extending VGA over UTP
Say you want to watch that movie you download last night on your new 42-inch HDTV Plasma Display but there’s no way you are going to move your PC near your TV just to move it back to your room when the movie ends. What you need is a long VGA cable. Although if you have a 42-inch Plasma TV you could buy a 25 feet VGA cable you could also just do it yourself! It’s cheap, it’s easy and it’s fun! … if you find soldering fun. So, you need a long VGA cable and you want to do it yourself but how could you do that? Using cheap UTP cable!
Let’s start with a list of materials, yo need:
- Two male HD-15 VGA connectors
- About 12m of cat5 UTP cable
- Solder and a soldering iron
- to be on your techie mode
Now that you’re ready you need to connect the wires of the UTP as listed in the following table, wire both connectors the same way:
HD-15 pin – VGA signal – UTP wire
1 – Red – Orange
2 – Green – Green
3 – Blue – Blue
6 – Red GND – Orange/White
7 – Green GND – Green/White
8 – Blue GND – Blue/White
13 – H Sync – Brown
14 – V Sync – Brown/White
That does the trick. The only drawback is the ‘ghosting’ effect as a result of the difference in impedance with a regular VGA cable (75 Ohms vs 100 Ohms on UTP). I made two extensions, one of 12m and other of about 18m. With the first that ghosting isn’t to noticeable, but it is on the 18m extension. If you really care about the quality, you should use an STP instead of UTP.
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