Optical Thunderbolt cable to Cinema. How to add a second monitor?

[jccrtv]

I'm in the soup with thunderbolt ports. Any thoughts would be appreciated:

1) Bought a long optical thunderbolt cable to place my newmac pro in another room. (Recording studio here needs quiet).
2) Problem arose when I went to plug the optical thunderbolt cable into the Thunderbolt Cinema display....you have two male cable ends: The optical thunderbolt cable coming into the room, and the male thunderbolt cable that's wired out of the display that should connect to your computer.
3) Fortunately I can plug the optical thunderbolt cable to the spare socket on the back of the display. But......
4) Problem is, we have always had TWO Cinema Displays. I can't plug the second display into the first as there's no extra thunderbolt socket on display #1. I tried Cinema #1's unused thunderbolt cable that's prewired, attaching that to monitor #2 but no dice.

So is there a hub available with 3 thunderbolt ports? Is there some other way I can daisy chain the second display in? It requires an extra thunderbolt port. Should I buy a SECOND run of thunderbolt optical cable and go direct from mac pro to Cinema #2?

 

[g4cube]

Not going to work as described.

Apple wants you to plug the Thunderbolt cable into your computer, and downstream devices into the Thunderbolt port on the display.

There is a workaround:
- place a dual port Thunderbolt device like a hard drive between the Thunderbolt display and the 2nd monitor.

The device in between regenerates the video for the downstream monitor.

 

[jccrtv]

Thank you G4Cube

Thank you, good plan.
Question please: Right now I am not using the built-in thunderbolt cable coming out the back of the display. I have the long optical thunderbolt cable coming from the mac, and plugged into the single spare port in the back of the monitor. That's my only way into monitor 1. That is working. Can I then take the monitor's built in thunderbolt cable and plug THAT into a second Thunderbolt Cinema display? I can't even guess if that built in cable (which normally takes the signal from mac to display), will OUTput the signal to the drive idea you mentioned and then to the second monitor?

Maybe I should make the chain: MAC>optical thunderbolt cable>Hard drive you mentioned or a Sonnet hub>to Cinema 1> then to Cinema 2.

 

[flynz4]

Thank you, good plan.
Question please: Right now I am not using the built-in thunderbolt cable coming out the back of the display. I have the long optical thunderbolt cable coming from the mac, and plugged into the single spare port in the back of the monitor. That's my only way into monitor 1. That is working. Can I then take the monitor's built in thunderbolt cable and plug THAT into a second Thunderbolt Cinema display? I can't even guess if that built in cable (which normally takes the signal from mac to display), will OUTput the signal to the drive idea you mentioned and then to the second monitor?

Maybe I should make the chain: MAC>optical thunderbolt cable>Hard drive you mentioned or a Sonnet hub>to Cinema 1> then to Cinema 2.

Yes... you can use the pigtale to connect to other TB peripherals. For example: NMP > ATD > Pegasus R4. The pigtale is essentially the same as connecting a TB cable to a second port.

What I do not know is if you can daisy chain two ATD from a single NMP. I only have one ATD.

/Jim

 

[jccrtv]

Thank you.

Thank you. That's good news. I'll give it a try.

 

[flynz4]

Thank you. That's good news. I'll give it a try.

There is one more thing. Unlike a normal port, the pigtale does not provide power down the wire. So, for example, I can use mine to attach my Pegasus R4 since it is a self powered device... but I cannot use it to attach my Seagate 2.5" portable HDD, since it is a bus powered device.

A second monitor is obviously a self powered device so that is good. I just don't know if two ATD monitors are supported in a daisy chain since I've never attempted it, nor can I test it for you.

/Jim