Author Topic: Power-line Ethernet?  (Read 2205 times)

Power-line Ethernet?
« on: 29 July, 2019, 07:25:31 am »
Does anyone have experience or advice about power-line Ethernet adapters?

I'm thinking of running ~30m of armoured power cable from an existing outside socket to my shed at the top of the garden.

In theory this should let me run power-line Ethernet from the house.

My primary use case is to stream from a satellite receiver in the shed to the house, so a solid 144Mb/s should be OK for HD.  I'd probably also put a security cam to keep an eye on the bikes.  Maybe also work in the shed occasionally when the house gets too noisy.

The alternative could be a directional Wi-Fi but my gut says go with wired rather than wireless.

Screwfix shows armoured 3-core power cable from 1.5mm2 up to 10mm2.  What would I need for a max 300W?

PaulF

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Re: Power-line Ethernet?
« Reply #1 on: 29 July, 2019, 07:48:26 am »
I'm using a similar approach to overcome the issues of thick walls blocking the Wi-Fi in my house. The boxes also have an Ethernet socket so should work for what you need. Works almost flawlessly, only issue is that I need to reboot the boxes every couple of months but that's  simply a matter of turning them off and on and waiting a minute to restart.

The manual said the base station and end units should be on the same ring main but I've had them running on 3 separate rings without issue.

Re: Power-line Ethernet?
« Reply #2 on: 29 July, 2019, 07:54:40 am »
Let me see if I have got this right? You want to put a plug on one end of the cable, insert that into a socket in the house, put a socket at the other end of the cable and plug a Ethernet adapter into that?

Will it work? Maybe?  The quality of Ethernet through the mains very much depends on the quality of the wiring between the 2 adapters. The further away and the more connections you have the worse the connection. Ideally, both adapters should be on the same ring main and not connected via extensions.
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Re: Power-line Ethernet?
« Reply #3 on: 29 July, 2019, 08:01:19 am »
If you're laying new cable, why not just lay a length of CAT6 (or two) in a plastic conduit at the same time?
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Re: Power-line Ethernet?
« Reply #4 on: 29 July, 2019, 08:12:49 am »
Running a coax from the satellite dish into the house would also be an option. You could run an ethernet cable at the same time and install a power-over-ethernet camera / wi-fi base station if you like.

Screwfix shows armoured 3-core power cable from 1.5mm2 up to 10mm2.  What would I need for a max 300W?

If you're asking this question in this way you need to hire a sparky.

(or at least do a *lot* more reading up before you consider DIYing it)

Re: Power-line Ethernet?
« Reply #5 on: 29 July, 2019, 08:30:36 am »
Power line works well in the house but in my case does not like spurs at all. For your proposals 30m is  quite a distance, I would take advice on appropriate electrical cable sizing and  earthing arrangements. Taking from a standard socket sounds as if it could be bit problematic and a sparks may encourage taking to the consumer unit or some such. When we did something similar at around the 22m mark it was with 6mm SWA from a redundant 30A cooker feed with a small distribution board in the garage but for a much higher potential demand i.e. int/ext lighting and the odd power tool etc. If you are running a new cable I would agree with the others and run a new Ethernet cable as well. You may need conduit to protect the Ethernet cable. If you are running underground dont forget to cover the cable with warning tape.
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Kim

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Re: Power-line Ethernet?
« Reply #6 on: 29 July, 2019, 11:55:43 am »
If you're laying new cable, why not just lay a length of CAT6 (or two) in a plastic conduit at the same time?

Absolutely this.  Power-line Ethernet is basically wireless, using the mains cable as a waveguide, with all the doesn't-work issues that that implies.  You know where you are with a cable.

There may be earthing implications.  Consult a sparky.  If you can't export the earth to the shed, it may be better to run fibre rather than copper ethernet, for safety reasons.

Re: Power-line Ethernet?
« Reply #7 on: 29 July, 2019, 12:15:54 pm »
Thanks for all the replies.

To hopefully reassure everyone, the starting point is a professionally installed external 13 amp socket covered by a recent inspection certificate.  So electrically all I am doing is running an extension cable.

I wired the whole house with Cat 5 about 15 years ago and could extend that but as there is an Ethernet socket next to an indoor power socket on the other side of the wall to the external socket, I'm hoping for an easy solution .  I'd really like to avoid drilling even more holes in the wall.

One of the goals is to pickup weak feed signals on satellites at 7E and 10E that my motorised 85cm  dish fails at.  So out comes the venerable 1.2m Channel Master.  A short cable run from the dish to the shed using some CT165 cable, that I already have, is going to be much better for this than running similarly thick cable from the dish to my main receiver ~40m away with significant cable loss.  Fibre optic LNBs don't seem to fit my DIY requirements yet.

I'm still tempted by power-line Ethernet.  If that doesn't work, I'll go armoured Cat-6 or a directional Wi-Fi antenna.

Kim

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Re: Power-line Ethernet?
« Reply #8 on: 29 July, 2019, 12:24:47 pm »
To hopefully reassure everyone, the starting point is a professionally installed external 13 amp socket covered by a recent inspection certificate.  So electrically all I am doing is running an extension cable.

This demonstrates your lack of understanding of the issues, I'm afraid.  Whether you can export the earth will depend on the earthing scheme of the house, how much exposed metalwork there is in the outbuilding, measured loop impedance and probably some other stuff that an electrician who actually knows what they're talking about will know.

Re: Power-line Ethernet?
« Reply #9 on: 29 July, 2019, 01:09:25 pm »
This demonstrates your lack of understanding of the issues, I'm afraid.

You are almost certainly right. 

I think back to plan A which was solar in the shed.

As everything I want to do is 12v then just need to work out how many panels and batteries would be needed in a cloudy UK January.

Re: Power-line Ethernet?
« Reply #10 on: 29 July, 2019, 01:40:43 pm »
Back to the original post.  I have a shed, connected to the house via a 130ft length of armoured cable (which was professionally installed), and I have a powerline adaptor in the shed running a cloned SSID from the master in the house. Works fine for the likes of Zwift, iPlayer etc.
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Re: Power-line Ethernet?
« Reply #11 on: 04 August, 2019, 11:34:50 pm »
If you're laying new cable, why not just lay a length of CAT6 (or two) in a plastic conduit at the same time?

Absolutely this.

I always heard that running Ethernet next to power cables was a bad idea (not for safety sake but for network sanity sake), especially for long runs. Any truth in this or is it rubbish?
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Re: Power-line Ethernet?
« Reply #12 on: 05 August, 2019, 06:54:09 am »
That's true. I was always told to cross power cables and Ethernet at 90deg and I've been a network engineer for 30+ years.

That said I have never been a cable monkey (I do switches and routers) we have specialist cabling teams for that who have all the correct test gear and are trained in the electrical regs etc.
With shielded cable I have never seen actual figures for signal interference.

If it was me I would run fibre. No interference and no problems with floating potentials due to earthing differences.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

vorsprung

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Re: Power-line Ethernet?
« Reply #13 on: 05 August, 2019, 08:47:15 am »
I am typing this now from an office up the garden connected via a 50m run of 13 amp cable, via a pair of Solwise Ethernet Powerline adaptors

When I dug the trench for the powerline it didn't occur to me to add some Cat5

I've used them for years, used to bring in the Internet connection up the garden and export it to the house via the Powerline.  Other way round now

Re: Power-line Ethernet?
« Reply #14 on: 05 August, 2019, 09:57:55 am »
A couple of these:

1Gbps copper to mutimode fibre media converter

Plus you will need some multimode fibre with the correct termination (you cant install your own connectors on fibre without some very expensive kit).
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

Morat

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Re: Power-line Ethernet?
« Reply #15 on: 05 August, 2019, 09:33:00 pm »
Fibre > all - although it can be pricey to buy it pre-terminated.

A couple of these
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-Procurve-2626-Switch-J4900C/264416538689?hash=item3d90743041:g:GscAAOSwEEVdQtmc

(or similar)
with a couple of these:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/J4858C-HP-Procurve-networking-SFP-1Gb-s-Transceiver/264411415094?hash=item3d90260236:g:7~UAAOSwfUZdPHMX


are an alternative, just depends if you have switches already. If you do then  pcolbeck's suggested converters look very neat.
MANY other options are available.

For the cable, here's an example (I haven't used this company as I buy un-terminated)
https://www.dttuk.co.uk/4core-50-125-om3-cst-pre-terminated-fibre-cable.html

You'd want LC connectors at each end, measure carefully! Too short and you're knackered of course, but too long and you'll be wondering what to do with the spare coils of fibre that you can't allow to kink.
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Re: Power-line Ethernet?
« Reply #16 on: 06 August, 2019, 06:42:15 am »
Be carefull buying the SFPs as there are several types intended for use over varying distances with different types of fibre optic cable. They all look the same though.

You want 1000BASE-SX transceivers which will allow a run of up to 550m on OM2 or 1000m on OM3 multi-mode fibre. The HP ones Morat recommands are 1000BASE-SX.

Luckily these are the cheapest ones. Long haul transceivers such as 1000BASE-ZX are more expensive and will allow 70km runs on single mode fibre but I suspect your garden isn't quite that long.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.