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Excellent Powered (Active) 4-Port USB 3.0 Hubs by Icy Box

11/4/2016

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​This may seem like a fairly random and short blog post, but I wanted to comment on my experience with a particular USB 3.0 hub. Once you start gathering a fair number of pieces of equipment that require a USB connection to your computer, or have a permanent setup, you may find you need a USB hub of some kind. The Intel NUC5i5RYK Mini PC I use to control all my equipment has four USB 3.0 ports, which is excellent, but I needed more. I bought a fairly inexpensive powered (active) USB hub by Trust at Media Markt in Spain and after half an hour of using it at e-EyE (for my permanent setup), it started failing. A combination of the near 0°C temperatures and the abnormally high 87% humidity of the night must have killed it. Either way, I was grateful I had taken a spare​, which turned out to work like a champ!
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This extremely reliable powered (active) 4-port USB 3.0 hub is the Icy Box IB-AC611. They are very small, very lightweight and have four data ports (blue) and one charging port (yellow). Not only does this USB hub seem to sustain the very low temperatures and high humidity, it also successfully powers my webcam and TALON6 ROR retractable roof controller, both of which have several USB 2.0 extension cables, totaling at about 7.8 metres of USB 2.0 cables (each). My Lakeside Motorised Focuser is also connected to this USB hub. 

I like these so much, I bought two extra ones. One will be a spare (kept at e-EyE) and another will be to give me even more ports, so I can connect my new AAG CloudWatcher Solo controller. No doubt there are other good USB hubs out there, but I just wanted to share my extremely good experience with these as finding a good one seems to be hard to come by. I bought these for £22.49 each (excluding VAT) from Overclockers UK (my favourite website for buying computer components!). 
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