THine Introduces Plug and Play Cable Extension Kit for Raspberry Pi Cameras

By Tiera Oliver

Associate Editor

Embedded Computing Design

March 11, 2021

News

THine Introduces Plug and Play Cable Extension Kit for Raspberry Pi Cameras

The Kit allows Raspberry Pi users to locate a Raspberry Pi Camera up to 20 meters away from a Raspberry Pi Computer.

 

THine Electronics and its fully owned USA subsidiary, THine Solutions, introduced a plug and play kit for Raspberry Pi systems to enable extending the distance up to 20 meters between a Raspberry Pi camera and a Raspberry Pi single board computer (SBC) with a low-cost LAN cable. 

Per the company, this kit frees designers from being restricted to the short 15-20 cm distance provided by the Flat Flexible Cable (FFC) shipped with the Raspberry Pi Camera Modules. The Kit allows the Raspberry Pi camera to work up to 20 meters away from the SBC with the exact same performance as if connected close to the SBC through the FFC. 

This new kit is based on THine’s V-by-One HS Serializer-Deserializer technology. V-by-One HS was developed by THine to support up to 4 Gbps per lane and is robust enough to extend the transmission of 1080p60 2Mpixel uncompressed video for greater than 15 meters with specified cables.  

Key Advantages:

  • Plug and Play – The Kit detects which RPi camera is connected and automatically sets the register settings of the THine serializer and de-serializer ICs to transport the video data over the increased distance to the SBC.
  • The Kit provides every component needed to increase the distance between the RPi camera and the SBC including a 2-meter LAN cable and all fastening hardware.
  • Up to 20-meter extension is possible due to the Kit’s support of long LAN cables.
  • Old and new Raspberry Pi cameras are supported by the Kit. This includes the V1.3, V2, and the newer High Quality (HQ) cameras.

”This kit solves a key problem for Raspberry Pi users by adding the design flexibility to place the camera far from the computer board with a plug and play, low cost, and simple to install solution.” said Tak Iizuka, Chief Solution Architect of THine Solutions. “As an example, we used the Kit on a telescope application where we placed the telescope and camera outside on a cold winter day in Chicago and placed the computer and display in a nice warm room to view pictures of the moon!” https://www.thinesolutions.com/news/cable-extension-kit-for-raspberry-pi-camera-improves-user-experience-for-pikon-telescope-application

The THSER101 is available for purchase at Digi-key https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/thine-solutions-inc/THSER101/13883531 and will soon be available at OKdo, an approved reseller of Raspberry Pi products.

For more information, visit: www.thinesolutions.com/cable-extension-kit

Tiera Oliver, Associate Editor for Embedded Computing Design, is responsible for web content edits, product news, and constructing stories. She also assists with newsletter updates as well as contributing and editing content for ECD podcasts and the ECD YouTube channel. Before working at ECD, Tiera graduated from Northern Arizona University where she received her B.S. in journalism and political science and worked as a news reporter for the university’s student led newspaper, The Lumberjack.

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