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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: OhManIAmWorried on Wed, 26 July 2017, 16:11:37

Title: USB hub issue (Share your Hub model, please)
Post by: OhManIAmWorried on Wed, 26 July 2017, 16:11:37

Until now, my first project was mostly success: Blank caps, caps from typewriter, dampening the case, manipulations with cables (Although, I've burned some circuitry and now my Drevo71 doesn't work  wireless, thanks to my stupidity). Now it's time to ask something from the community...

Plans:
I've planned to use humanoid style usb hub like this:

More

(http://i.imgur.com/vbxAU2V.jpg)

to connect my mouse, keyboard itself (Drevo Calibur), and a numeric keypad (CombatWing aka The cheapest cherry numpad money can buy). Further, I want(ed) to throw this hub into the keyboard, make some soldering, drilling etc., to have a fancy in-built usb hub.

Issue:
When I plug a keyboard and a mouse to the hub everything seems to work fine, plugging the numpad straight into the laptop is not a problem either. But, when I plug all of those into the hub my numpad blocks with the lock light on, all the perepherial stops working and I am left with a pile of bricks.

Question:
What am I doing wrong and which hub should I buy instead (tested one)?

Update:
Another (less cheap) hub seems to work, it has no power supply but it is too big for my needs. Any suggestions for a new hub?

Pls, correct me at Engrish if I am wrong.

Title: Re: USB hub issue
Post by: Auk on Wed, 26 July 2017, 16:14:05

Too much power draw from all the LEDs?

Title: Re: USB hub issue
Post by: OhManIAmWorried on Wed, 26 July 2017, 16:19:05

Can a single small led have so much influence? Laptop throws messages like "unrecognized usb device" when stuff happens.

Title: Re: USB hub issue
Post by: Auk on Wed, 26 July 2017, 16:30:43

I'm just guessing, but if your keyboard has 71+ LEDs and a controller drawing power, the numpad could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. It does seem odd though, full size boards obviously have a lot more LEDs and if you're only adding mouse + numpad this is unusual issue.

Anker and Kensington might be worth looking at for USB hubs, but I'd want to know what the issue is before wasting money on a new hub that might be unnecessary.


EDIT: your Drevo is Bluetooth, have you left batteries in while plugging it in to USB? try removing them.

Title: Re: USB hub issue (Share your Hub model, please)
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 26 July 2017, 17:30:30

RGB backlights draw 4-10 times more power than normal led backlighting.

Not only is there 3 or 4 led's inside the led housing, but some colors need more power (blue). You also need power for the controller, the battery, battery charging circuit and don't forget the hub is also drawing power AND that this is a Chinese keyboard, where math is... Flexible. You can EASILY over power a USB 2.0 port. Not to mention that the USB spec is quite liberal with rules and the industry is even more lax about following them (looking at you Apple! One among many).


And all of this goes triple if you are using the front port on your computer. The 2.0 front parts are GARBAGE and you should never plug anything you value into them, particularly on a low end aftermarket case. Seen way too many things damaged this way.


As mentioned, look into Anker, this is your best bang for the buck for USB 3 hubs (I use a 7 port version). For USB 2.0 hubs, Belkin made a truly fantastic one that actually provided proper speeds to all ports* however, they are not cheap, hard to find, and yo may as well just get the Anker 3.0 and be done with 2.0 since it's better all around anyway.


*If you plug all usb 2.0 items into a usb 2.0 hub, speeds are all equal. however if you plug in a single usb 1.1 or 1.0 item into that hub, all devices will now run at usb 1.0 or 1.1 speeds. The good Belkins (they made 2, both of which run warm) isolates the usb 1.0 and 1.1 devices so each port runs at full speed (I forget what they called this protocol), this was written as an option to the 2.0 spec and is expensive to implement so only a handful of hubs ever supported it (I found 5 when I was researching them when I bought my Belkins) and was probably written as an option because of the price ($60-$120 when new). Usb 3.0 does this automatically and is part of the USB 3.0 spec.


Update:
It was called multiple transaction translators or Multi-TT.
This is another reason to ditch your crappy usb 2.0 hubs as you may only get 1.5meg transfer rates of a slower device is installed.
Good thread about this here: https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?t=215750