How do I adapt a firewire camera to a computer with USB 2.0/3.0?

[Enigmatic Indian]

I bought a firewire IEEE 1394A PCIe card in order to use my firewire scientific analysis camera. Meanwhile I also bought a PC and realized that my PC does not have an extra slot for the PCIe card. Is there is a way out using USB or Firewire to USB adapters?

 

[helpstar]

Which motherboard do you have?

Cables between firewire and USB are only working if the camera can communicate via USB too.

which exact brand and model is the camera of?

 

[Enigmatic Indian]

Which motherboard do you have?

Cables between firewire and USB are only working if the camera can communicate via USB too.

which exact brand and model is the camera of?

Hi helpstar!


Item Value
OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Professional
Version 6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name SAMLIFTDOUBLEPU
System Manufacturer Dell Inc.
System Model OptiPlex 3040
System Type x64-based PC
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6500 CPU @ 3.20GHz, 3201 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date Dell Inc. 1.3.5, 1/26/2016
SMBIOS Version 2.8
Windows Directory C:\Windows
System Directory C:\Windows\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume2
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "6.1.7601.17514"
User Name SamLIFTDoublePu\Sam LIFT DoublePulse
Time Zone Romance Daylight Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 8.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 7.94 GB
Available Physical Memory 3.29 GB
Total Virtual Memory 15.9 GB
Available Virtual Memory 8.15 GB

 

[Enigmatic Indian]

Which motherboard do you have?

Cables between firewire and USB are only working if the camera can communicate via USB too.

which exact brand and model is the camera of?

The camera is a qimaging, scientific analysis camera for technical stuff!!

 

[helpstar]

you can use any PCI-E port for the firewire, even larger ones like the x16 port

 

[Enigmatic Indian]

you can use any PCI-E port for the firewire, even larger ones like the x16 port

The problem is I donot have a PCIe slot in my computer!! Is there something else that could be done? Any adapters or some other external device that can be used to get the firewire camera running?

 

[helpstar]

please post a picture of the motherboard (uploasd it to an free image hoster and post the link)
can´t believe that you don´t have even one PCI-E Slot

 

[Enigmatic Indian]

please post a picture of the motherboard (uploasd it to an free image hoster and post the link)
can´t believe that you don´t have even one PCI-E Slot

Hi, I am posting the link of the motherboard pic here. Kindly have a look! Thank you!

https://postimg.org/image/bmzocszq3/

 

[Dragos Manea]

If it has hunderbolt you can use this http://www.sonnettech.com/Product/echoexpresscard34thunderbolt.html and buy a firewire express card like this one https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-ExpressCard-Firewire-Adapter-EC13942/dp/B000RKUKMG

 

[Enigmatic Indian]

Thanks for the answer Dragos, but unfortunately no thunderbolt! Any other solution?

 

[Dragos Manea]

Besides a pci-e card or a thunderbolt adaptor it will work only if it has support for usb or lan, i m in the same situation as you and had to buy a hp zbook 15 g2 because of an kappa dx4 camera which is a special camera used in research and has a onyl a firewire conection. This notebook we choose it is a bit expensive but it has express card slot. We onyl had to buy a express card firewire adaptor.

 

[Enigmatic Indian]

Which motherboard do you have?

Cables between firewire and USB are only working if the camera can communicate via USB too.

which exact brand and model is the camera of?

Besides a pci-e card or a thunderbolt adaptor it will work only if it has support for usb or lan, i m in the same situation as you and had to buy a hp zbook 15 g2 because of an kappa dx4 camera which is a special camera used in research and has a onyl a firewire conection. This notebook we choose it is a bit expensive but it has express card slot. We onyl had to buy a express card firewire adaptor.

Oh.. damn... its crazy adapting things to tech thats older and such a waste of time and effort! Losing valuable time for finding a solution to this! cool! U r idea sounds good, but unfortunately I am running short on budget! Thank you for the answer! Will try exploring other possibilities!!

 

[Enigmatic Indian]

please post a picture of the motherboard (uploasd it to an free image hoster and post the link)
can´t believe that you don´t have even one PCI-E Slot

Hey helpstar,

I found another PC luckily!! Do you think I can find a firewire pcie cards for these slots? Would be very grateful to you if u can kindly let me know. I am posting the link of the image! Thank you!

https://i.imgsafe.org/fe5306e15e.jpg

 

[Dragos Manea]

here you go, http://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-Express-to-IEEE-1394A-B-Combine-PCI-E-2B-1A-Firewire-800Mbps-Card-/170906891547?hash=item27cad8351b:g:qOkAAOxy9bxRzEZq, this one has firewire a and b.

EDIT: On those slots (PCI-E x1) you can find any firewire card you need.

here on amazon https://www.amazon.com/Syba-Firewire-XIO2213B-Components-SY-PEX30016/dp/B006DQ0KD2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474295422&sr=8-1&keywords=pci-e+x1+firewire

2nd EDIT: Make sure to check the power requirements for your camera, it may need an extra power conector on the firewire card to support your camera. Here it is with firewire type a https://www.amazon.com/Controller-Card-Express-FireWire-IEEE1394/dp/B01EHQ07Q4/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1474296151&sr=8-3&keywords=pcie+x1+firewire and here it is with firewire type b https://www.amazon.com/3PORT-Firewire-Pcie-Card-Allegro/dp/B002XHBR8C/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1474296151&sr=8-7&keywords=pcie+x1+firewire. Type a is 400 mbs and type b is 800 mbs.

 

[Enigmatic Indian]

here you go, http://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-Express-to-IEEE-1394A-B-Combine-PCI-E-2B-1A-Firewire-800Mbps-Card-/170906891547?hash=item27cad8351b:g:qOkAAOxy9bxRzEZq, this one has firewire a and b.

EDIT: On those slots (PCI-E x1) you can find any firewire card you need.

here on amazon https://www.amazon.com/Syba-Firewire-XIO2213B-Components-SY-PEX30016/dp/B006DQ0KD2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474295422&sr=8-1&keywords=pci-e+x1+firewire

2nd EDIT: Make sure to check the power requirements for your camera, it may need an extra power conector on the firewire card to support your camera. Here it is with firewire type a https://www.amazon.com/Controller-Card-Express-FireWire-IEEE1394/dp/B01EHQ07Q4/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1474296151&sr=8-3&keywords=pcie+x1+firewire and here it is with firewire type b https://www.amazon.com/3PORT-Firewire-Pcie-Card-Allegro/dp/B002XHBR8C/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1474296151&sr=8-7&keywords=pcie+x1+firewire. Type a is 400 mbs and type b is 800 mbs.

Hi Dragos, Thank you for the detailed answer. My scientific analysis camera needs 8-24 volts to work! here is the link for the datasheet of the camera! Maybe you ll now have a better understanding of what my requirements are!

http://www.qimaging.com/products/datasheets/QICAM-12bit.pdf

 

[helpstar]

the power/voltage will be provided via firewire1394, that´s standard

 

[Dragos Manea]

the power/voltage will be provided via firewire1394, that´s standard

Not entirely true, our camera needs an extra power source, it is not enought just the power delivered by the slot.
OK Enigmatic Indian, first of all you need type A firewire (it needs a sustained data stream of 40 mb/s which is equivelent of 400 mbs (400/8 = 50 mb/s)) so in this case to be sure you got plenty of power for the camera you will need something like this https://www.amazon.com/Controller-Card-Express-FireWire-IEEE1394/dp/B01EHQ07Q4/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1474370923&sr=8-4&keywords=pcie-x1+firewire

It should provide enought power for whatever you need. be sure to conect the extrapower molex conector.

EDIT: Yes the voltage will be provided automatic on the firewire cable which is 12V but it may lack the amperage so in this case the extra molex conector should be enought for any device conected on the firewire port.

 

[helpstar]

the camera used here does not need any additional power source. the pcie firewire card eventually does

 

[Dragos Manea]

the camera used here does not need any additional power source. the pcie firewire card eventually does

The x1 slots can serve up to maximum 25W full height and 10W half height, now the firewire card is considered half hight so it means it has a maximum of 10W that means 0.83 amps, his camera if you check the datasheet it needs a maximum of 11W , 0.91 amps so it exeeds the maximum power that the slot can deliver, in this scenerio is better to be on the safe side.

About your coment that the card requiers an external power supply, our camera needs an external extrapower conector no matter how we connect it, even in the x1 slots (we use it on desktops as well) if we dont have an extrapower conector it wont powerup, so our camera no matter if we use it on expresscard on notebook or in a x1 slot card we need additional power conector.

 

[Enigmatic Indian]

the power/voltage will be provided via firewire1394, that´s standard

Not entirely true, our camera needs an extra power source, it is not enought just the power delivered by the slot.
OK Enigmatic Indian, first of all you need type A firewire (it needs a sustained data stream of 40 mb/s which is equivelent of 400 mbs (400/8 = 50 mb/s)) so in this case to be sure you got plenty of power for the camera you will need something like this https://www.amazon.com/Controller-Card-Express-FireWire-IEEE1394/dp/B01EHQ07Q4/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1474370923&sr=8-4&keywords=pcie-x1+firewire

It should provide enought power for whatever you need. be sure to conect the extrapower molex conector.

EDIT: Yes the voltage will be provided automatic on the firewire cable which is 12V but it may lack the amperage so in this case the extra molex conector should be enought for any device conected on the firewire port.

Thank you for all the help Dragos! highly appreciate and very grateful! Will go for this card! Thank you again!

 

[Enigmatic Indian]

the camera used here does not need any additional power source. the pcie firewire card eventually does

Thank you for the confirmation helpstar! Very grateful and highly appreciate!

 

[Dragos Manea]

Your welcome. Glad i could help.