Broadband Powerline adaptors

[Paul13]

Hi all, does anyone have experience of using powerline adapters? I would like to get internet access in my converted garage to use as an office but the WiFi doesn't reach. The garage has mains power on a spur from the main consumer unit in the house running to another small unit in the garage. Does anyone know ifhe adapters work as there is a second small consumer unit? 

[JJGraphics]

PowerLine adaptors should work in your situation. Only if two locations are fed from separate consumer units, that can sometimes be problem.

 

My personal preference is for the ones manufactured by TP-Link, both the straight Ethernet to Ethernet adaptors and the type which have a WiFi hotspot at the delivery end.

 

The type of adaptors that receive and relay the WiFi signal ("WiFi Extenders") can be more trouble than they are worth but do work in some situations.

 

John

 

 

Edited April 25, 2020 by JJGraphics
Additional comments

[njee20]

I’ve got the BT ones, they’re woeful. I get 170mbps by the router, c120mbps at the other side of the house. If I use an Ethernet cable to the powerline adapter I get about 20mbps, on WiFi I get about 3mbps.

 

I’ve just ordered a mesh WiFi network, as I think that’ll be a better solution, and still wasn’t exorbitant. 

Edited April 24, 2020 by njee20

[QWILPEN]

i gave up on the powerline adaptors, and hard wired out to my shed,

[AndrewC]

They aren’t great. Unless you are on the same ring, you will run into issues. Also they don’t pass multicast very well so if you are using something like Sonos or streaming services, they aren’t supported.

[RFS]

After converting my loft into a railway room I tried a couple of these as WiFi reception was not good enough. But these were just too slow for my liking. In the end I splashed out £7 on a 25m ethernet cable (both PC and router have gigabit ports) and managed to hide the cable well enough to satisfy the domestic authorities. I can now use the spare disk capacity on the railway room PC for large backups from our downstairs PCs. 

[figworthy]

6 hours ago, Paul13 said:

Hi all, does anyone have experience of using powerline adapters? I would like to get internet access in my converted garage to use as an office but the WiFi doesn't reach. The garage has mains power on a spur from the main consumer unit in the house running to another small unit in the garage. Does anyone know ifhe adapters work as there is a second small consumer unit? 

 

I'm using three of them on a regular basis.  They work, but they aren't brilliant.  Ping times are typically 10-100 times slower than across normal Ethernet.

 

Adrian

[Pete the Elaner]

Powerline is great for getting a network connection to places where a dedicated ethernet connection is impractical, but it has limitations.

Gigabit ethernet uses 4 wires. How could a system which modifies an already dirty sine wave on 2 wires possibly compete with that?

 

Powerline will probably be fine for light use like streaming MP3s, using JMRI (while storing data on a network location so you can back it up  ), or using Word/Excel. It may struggle if you want to stream HD video.

 

Depending on what you want it for hard-wiring 100MB (fast) or 1000MB (gigabit) ethernet may be overkill.

 

A practical question is, what do you want to use the network for?

[ColinK]

I have some, they are Devolo dLAN.  Broadband comes to the house at the front and I wanted a decent internet connection at the back, after speaking to their technical guy and bought them.  The unit plugged in at the back of the house has the smart TV plugged into it and I can get BBC iplayer which is what I wanted. It also is a wifi extender and gives me wifi even in the conservatory.  They work well and I’m very happy with them.

[mezzoman253]

Please,please,please,please, please, don't use these. The mains wiring was never intended to be used for signalling and these things radiate  from the mains wiring which acts like an aerial.

 

Many , many radio hams have had their hobby ruined by the crap these things emit, and they are susceptible to radio signals too which can cause them to stop working when the transmission is nearby.

 

You could also be sending this interference into other homes if they are on the same mains distribution as you.

 

Here's a site with examples of the different types of interference caused.  https://www.ban-plt.org.uk/

 

I'm sure you like to enjoy your hobby, as do radio hams.

 

Thanks,

 

Rob

 

 

Edited April 25, 2020 by mezzoman253

[bourneagain]

19 hours ago, Paul13 said:

Hi all, does anyone have experience of using powerline adapters? I would like to get internet access in my converted garage to use as an office but the WiFi doesn't reach. The garage has mains power on a spur from the main consumer unit in the house running to another small unit in the garage. Does anyone know ifhe adapters work as there is a second small consumer unit? 

I had the same problem and set up as you, my detached ex garage, now railway room is being supplied by the same method, via 2 consumer units.

My Virgin Media router is situated in my living room, which being diagonally opposite my garage, so installing any cable connection or Wi-Fi booster system wasn`t an option.

So after some investigation I ending up buying 2 TRENDnet TPL-408E2K/UK Powerline sockets off Amazon for £38.00 and I`ve had no problems since I installed them some 3 years ago. Although they do lose connection very occasionally, but are very easily reset by a small button on the unit.

To work efficiently they do need to be plugged directly into their own socket outlet at both ends, not into an extension lead, so I use one socket of a double, the other having the extension lead plugged in to power the computer equipment etc.

I`ve just done a speed test - house 95Mbps, railway room 65Mbps, which for my general purposes ie searching, emails, youtube etc is ok. But if you are planning to use your computer for gaming etc, then that may be a problem.

There are many other types of these adaptors on the market, be aware some claim they are able to transfer a maximum of xxx amount of Mbps, but in reality they do fall well short of their figures.  

Hope this helps

[big jim]

I’ve got the same set up, spur off the house to the garage but Into a separate consumer unit , power lines don’t work in my experience, but having read some of the above posts I may have another try 

 

I’ve got a netgear WiFi extender, a Stand alone Unit that is in the garage and extends the WiFi from the house, we have sky broadband with sky Q boxes sending out WiFi, it gave a good enough signal to be able to go on line in the garage with the Xbox and download games to it but very slowly compared to a wired connection in the house, it does however connect to Xbox live etc and amazon without issue 

 

I did have a small plug in extender which while it worked was prone to the signal dropping out regularly 

[Trofimow]

If you have an old unused wireless router, you might be able to use that as an extender. That's what I did to get wifi into the railway room.

 

Tried the power line units, but found them both slow and flaky.

[kevinlms]

If it's at possible, consider running a network cable. This will give you a much more reliable connection, especially if you're using it for an office. Up to 100 metres (300ft) for Cat 5/6, without any loss.

 

A network cable is effectively the same as having your router in the office and it will just work, without any drop outs or resetting anything. A hassle free solution once the cable is run, yet I've seen people mess about trying different equipment/ways of getting internet.

[big jim]

I’ve got a 100m cable I’ve been looking at routing to my garage but it’s the physical ‘getting it there’ that’s the headache, if they do a waterproof/weatherproof outdoor cable then I could run it via the plastic drainage channel I have around the edge of my patio to the garage then have it enter at the same point as the electricity supply going straight into the existing WiFi booster but having the Xbox, PS4, etc running from the Ethernet Ports on it, Amazon echos, phones etc could then run off the WiFi 

 

the only other issue I will soon have is when I wire up my lenz 100 WiFi connector as that will put a different WiFi network in the garage and I will need the phone to connect to that when the layout is on

 

 

[Jonboy]

You can get armoured Ethernet cable which is 12mm thick. A crimping tool and pack of 50 plugs costs less than £20. The plug strips the cables as you crimp so it’s just remove an inch of outer sheath, organise the inner wires into right order and make sure they line up with the channels  as you push into the plug, and crimp.

 

(Don’t tell any comms engineers but i have in the past run bog standard internal use Ethernet cable down the outside of a house through the soffit, and back in through the wall at plug socket height , and it’s still going strong 5 years later, it is however in a sheltered spot out of direct sunlight).

 

 

[Paul13]

Thanks everyone for your comments. I wish I had put in an ethernet cable when the wiring was done originally but hindsight is a great thing.  The internet speed doesn't need to be superfast, all I need is to be able to work remotely accessing work server for documents really.  I have sky q with an extra repeated but moving it as near as possible to the garage still only give every patchy reception. m

My garage is set back from the house a bit which doesn't help. Think I might give powerline adaptors a go and if they're no good I'll return them.

[mezzoman253]

Must have been the invisible ink again.

 

Rob

[kevinlms]

30 minutes ago, big jim said:

I’ve got a 100m cable I’ve been looking at routing to my garage but it’s the physical ‘getting it there’ that’s the headache, if they do a waterproof/weatherproof outdoor cable then I could run it via the plastic drainage channel I have around the edge of my patio to the garage then have it enter at the same point as the electricity supply going straight into the existing WiFi booster but having the Xbox, PS4, etc running from the Ethernet Ports on it, Amazon echos, phones etc could then run off the WiFi 

 

the only other issue I will soon have is when I wire up my lenz 100 WiFi connector as that will put a different WiFi network in the garage and I will need the phone to connect to that when the layout is on

 

 

This is what you want. It wouldn't have to go in anything.

 

https://www.dungannonelectrical.co.uk/Search-Results?prodref=CAT5+E+POLY&proddesc=CAT5e-Outdoor-Poly-Cable-305mt&category=pg_cat 5493193&catdesc=CAT5e-Cable

[big jim]

21 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

This is what you want. It wouldn't have to go in anything.

 

https://www.dungannonelectrical.co.uk/Search-Results?prodref=CAT5+E+POLY&proddesc=CAT5e-Outdoor-Poly-Cable-305mt&category=pg_cat 5493193&catdesc=CAT5e-Cable

Thanks for that, I’ll see if I can find something similar on amazon! 

[PaulCheffus]

20 hours ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

Powerline will probably be fine for light use like streaming MP3s, using JMRI (while storing data on a network location so you can back it up  ), or using Word/Excel. It may struggle if you want to stream HD video.

 

Hi

 

No problem here streaming HD video over Powerline adaptors.

 

Cheers

 

Paul

[njee20]

4 hours ago, mezzoman253 said:

Must have been the invisible ink again.

 

Rob

Any need for the sarcasm? I'm not going to stop doing something just in case someone nearby has an unusual hobby that I may possibly interfere with. I'm also not going to sit in total darkness in case someone is trying to use a telescope nearby.

[spamcan61]

28 minutes ago, PaulCheffus said:

Hi

 

No problem here streaming HD video over Powerline adaptors.

 

Cheers

 

Paul

Given that nobody's mains wiring was designed to have broadband RF shoved up it different folks' experience will vary widely; I appreciate that doesn't help the OP much!

[Jonboy]

8 minutes ago, njee20 said:

Any need for the sarcasm? I'm not going to stop doing something just in case someone nearby has an unusual hobby that I may possibly interfere with. I'm also not going to sit in total darkness in case someone is trying to use a telescope nearby.

Invisible ink is a common expression on online forums for conversations that ignore or repeat previous posts, not intended to necessarily be sarcastic.

The point is that your light isn’t likely to be working outside legal parameters(Certain LED or ballast fittings aside), whereas it is believed that almost all PLAs cause illegal interference but the authorities seem to be unwilling to engage because there is little money to be made from enforcement and too many units out in the wild to be able to get rid of them.

 

Disclaimer, I am new to the amateur radio hobby and currently use pla’s for home working. I am looking to eliminate them but it isn’t straightforward due to the physical attributes of the property, available power points and Ethernet only equipped equipment.

[njee20]

Yes, I know, but the subtext is "YOU HAVEN'T LISTENED TO ME", which people are fully entitled not to do. I did actually go and read some of the website Rob linked to, but it just reads like a conspiracy theory, and is far too melodramatic.