Stacking Official MiSTer v2.1 USB Hubs?

[metebelis_3]

Just wondering if it's possible to stack two official Mister 2.1 USB hubs using two bridge connectors. Cheers.

[DevilHunterWolf]

The design of the hub is not made for stacking additional hubs. I believe the micro USB on it is just for compatibility with the older bridge piece (it was micro USB to micro USB) rather than to connect another hub. But even if you could, it wouldn't be a good solution.

What you're asking for is to connect a USB hub into a USB hub. It would functionally be no different than plugging in a standard powered computer hub. The MiSTer hub is just a form factor to match the rest. But every time you use a hub, you're splitting a singular port. Two hubs connected into each other would be splitting a port and then taking one of those splits and dividing it again. That's generally not a good idea as the available power and data connection is going to be significantly less as it's all taking from just one port. As it is, the 7 ports in a standard MiSTer USB hub needs to feed off the DE10-Nano's included AC adapter with a splitter to handle that many USB ports. Even then, the upgraded AC adapter is sometimes needed depending on how power hungry the things being plugged in are. And that's just for one MiSTer USB hub. A second hub would at minimum be starving for data connectivity and likely create connection issues with whatever you plugged in (controller malfunctions, dongles not working, etc). And if it was all trying to use the same AC adapter, it could create moments where the power draw from the DE10-Nano and two hubs is too much and the DE10-Nano can't function properly.

Hubs are better suited to being used on separate ports. But as the DE10-Nano only has the one micro USB for connections (the mini USB is a debug only port), there's no second port for a second hub to function properly.

[metebelis_3]

Many thanks for your detailed reply. Cheers