USB cable extension length 15 foot plus 1.5 foot to a powered hub

I have never owned or used a powered usb hub. Why have a 7 port hub if they don't work that well? I have about 15 feet to get to where it needs to be, then need to connect three usb devices. That just makes it much longer than 15 feet, more like 20 feet.

I need to find our camera and see how it works on this long 19 foot cable I put together.

I do have a PS2 keyboard. I can buy a 15 foot PS2 extension cable. Would that work ok?

I am running OpenCpn navigation program. Mostly the input is the GPS, the mouse will occasionally be moved, the keyboard much less than the mouse.

I have the LED mouse plugged into 19 feet of usb cable extensions and it is working great. The extensions are a real mix, one 6 foot usb 3.0 ext, two usb 2.0 cheapo extensions, a cheap 3$ mouse from amazon.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

Wandering one said:

Might work better to forget hub and pass three individual GOOD quality cables. With hub all have to use a single line.
Art,

The keyboard and mouse probably would be able to share a single cable but adding a GPS could create bottle necks, in which case a second (Plan B) or a third (Plan C)USB cable may be needed.

Plan D would be an active extension cable like this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GLZYG5S...9EH2R3OR&psc=1

I saw that and also it is $7 on ebay. The reviews are all over the map on it. Significant negative numbers, specifically drops the connections, goes to sleep and wont awake, cant recognize device, works then wont work, then works, not enough power to run the device. So I then read the powered hub has a built-in better repeater I think.

If the cheap $3 usb 15 foot extender works fine, then I will have more choices, if the GPS has issues with the mouse.

I have never needed a usb hub in decades of computer usage.

This is getting real silly!
I plugged in an external harddrive in a 3.5 inch case self powered.
I plugged this into my cobbled together usb mixed up 19 foot cable.
Then I am playing a movie off the drive. It plays fine full screen too.
???
Not supposed to work, but it does work.

I would like an explanation if anyone knows one as to why it works fine.

Just updating. I plugged in an external hard drive with a 5 foot cable into the 15 foot cable and it works fine.

I bought that hub, and it works fine sort of. The hub however has an issue. Not all the ports work all the time even with just a short cable to the PC. I found out the USB micro B port into the hub has defects. It has an odd scratchy feel, does not feel right. Inserting it over and over, various ports work and others do not. My guess is the little contacts going into the hub are not lining up properly all the time so electrically it is hit or miss randomly.

Was quite a shock to plug it in and find half the ports did not work at all.

sdowney717 said:

This is getting real silly!
I plugged in an external harddrive in a 3.5 inch case self powered.
I plugged this into my cobbled together usb mixed up 19 foot cable.
Then I am playing a movie off the drive. It plays fine full screen too.
???
Not supposed to work, but it does work.

I would like an explanation if anyone knows one as to why it works fine.

Speed.
Not transferring of data; read &or write.
Power is minimum.

Watching movies files only required a small speed.
Consider as reading the hard disk only, without any writing on the hard disk.

Watching movie is similar to video streaming by broadband.
In broadband &or internet mobile data, to download movie, it take about, say 15 minutes,
but the movie is 100 minutes, hence the movie is store in the buffer.

USB do not just for data, it also a power-supply to many devices, charging mobile handset.
The power-hub do help in a way, do not required computer USB power.