Wireless routers cascaded, Ethernet in / Wifi out

[Soundguy]

My origin and destination are on different legs coming off of the electric panel, one leg installed 1943 and the other 1988 - so it isn't an ideal clean setup.

Actual measured results:

(Home in town). Speedtest on my phone at the origin, wifi a foot from the FTTN router: 27 ms ping, 21.62 Mbps download.
Speedtest on my desktop 40 ft away at the far end of the house through wired EoP link: 28 ms ping, 22.96 Mbps download.

Conclusion: this EoP link is providing output @ 100% of the speed fed into it.

I don't have any better data but with speed out = speed in, I'm happy.

I suspect theoretical maximum for these would be 100 Mbps less overhead so maybe 90 ? Mbps practical maximum over clean powerlines.

They sell gigabit versions which should be faster.

Nice!

 

[MossRoad]

You would have howled at what I was running at home and ranch up through 2011. The very definition of 'Old School'.

Surely you recognize the HP Laserjet IIp and IIIp. At work I bought one when they were introduced in 1989, for an investigator who needed privacy. Around 1996 I found one in a thrift store for $20, all it needed was a little spring to elevate the feed blade and feed the next sheet. $5 mailorder for the spring and I had a better laser printer than many offices. Over the years I must have had 20 or so IIp's and IIIp's all bought for near nothing. I had them in service for me, for my kids college dorms, and as as gifts for friends. Scanner motor died, no problem, I have several more in the parts box. A couple of years ago there were no longer decent cartridges for these on Ebay and I finally ran out of serviceable used rollers, separator pads etc, so I replaced these with used 2003 Laserjet 1300's. Much faster, otherwise the same thing. I have a modern color laser printer (Samsung) but the elderly Laserjets have always been the cheap-to-run workhorses doing 95% of the printing.

I'm retired so staying one generation behind is cheap and serves me fine. I take the approach that I can play with more toys when I don't pay much for them, latest example is the used routers re-configured as remote Access Points that I described above. Two more examples are in my sig photo, below.

I'm not howling.... just about 5 years ago we had to replace all of ours with 8150's because the people in the office kept breaking them. They were tough, but not tough enough. The 8150s are too heavy to knock off a desk.

 

[California]

I finally got back out to the ranch.

Quick summary, This isn't like my house in town. The farm wiring isn't clean enough to push EoP all the way to the guest cabin out back.

I did improve signal in the cabin by moving my Netgear wifi repeater ($23 @ Amazon) out to the center of the cabin.
(The repeater had been broadcasting toward the cabin from the house's back window. That was sufficient when the DSL was 1.5 Mbps).

Some Speedtest numbers repeating signal from the farm house:

Rural FTTN at the modem/router in the house, 13.80 Mbps.
In center of cabin near Netgear wifi repeater, 10.5 Mbps typical.
At other points inside the cabin 7 to 11 Mbps.

This is 3~4 times faster and now mostly uniform throughout the cabin.


Ethernet over Powerline test:
I tried the EoP receiver (and an attached router, to broadcast wifi) in nearly every outlet in the cabin, so in both legs of the 220 and also upside down to reverse polarity but wifi was poor to none.

I then tested the EoP receiver at the secondary electrical panel in the barn: Full speed, 12.5 to 13.8 Mbps. So I'm getting a clean signal that far. But (electrically) the barn panel is only half way to the cabin. Its a wonder this works at all, everything is non-code farmer-installed amateur work. The farmhouse was wired years after it was built, and then 50 years ago 100 amp service was extended out to the barn. From there buried cable goes to the cabin. A 3-led outlet tester here shows various patterns from various outlets including some patterns not even described on the tester. Most original circuits in the farmhouse are not grounded. I use a plugin GFI ahead of extension cords to work outdoors.

With the EoP receiver (and my router) broadcasting from the barn, inside the cabin I can receive signal from them but at a quarter the speed compared to what the local repeater in the cabin provides. Not a useful solution.

I have one practical application for EoP here: in the ranch house an EoP receiver works well to feed the Ethernet-input Laserjet located where it is out of the way.

Conclusion: EoP signal made it 100 ft to the barn sub-panel but not the next 50 ft out to the cabin. Wifi repeater in the cabin (that listens to the principal router in the farmhouse) solved the problem of uniform wifi throughout the cabin.

 

[MossRoad]

Is your eop on the same leg? I ask, because my neighbor tried it last year. He plugged one in the house and the other in the garage. He got lousy signal strength and it was only 120' over the AC wire. I asked him to plug the one in the house into a different outlet on a different circuit and it worked much better. So, without opening his panel and tracing out all the circuits, I just concluded it was now on the same leg as the 110 in his garage. But that was never proven, just a guess.

 

[California]

I'll make one last try in the morning to see if that helps.

I think I've already covered the possibilities, signal arrives full speed to the barn panel then degrades between there and the cabin. Because I tried outlets on both sides of the 220 in the cabin I think I've covered every possibility. But getting on the opposite side in the house then testing through to the cabin might give different results.

One thing I confirmed: the instructions say plug the sender into a wall outlet for best results. I had it on a surge-protected switchable power strip because I like to shut everything down when I go. But for testing I moved it to a wall outlet 5 ft from the house's main panel. That improved speed to the barn but didn't help get the signal beyond that, to the cabin.

 

[Soundguy]

California, I hear ya on used gear.

After a group yardsale a year ago I found a netgear router that was unsold and left for the trash.

I took it home and erased/reset it. it went back to default admin//user passwords, codes and all on the lower lable.

it sat in a box for a while till my mother in law decided she needed wifi at her house. Took a few minutes to figure out her comcast cable modem setup, but now she enjoys wifi in her house so she can set in her easy chair and play with her phone on her home wifi without burning up MY data plan.

 

[sdef]

I did not read all of the replies so maybe I am duplicating what has been provided previously. Personally, I only use Wi-Fi for convenience of guests and the wife. I work from home in the server world, am security conscious and require the reliability of wired connectivity. All of my devices are Ethernet connected, including my various PCs, AV system, printers, NASes, etc. At the end of my post is a link to setting up multiple routers with the same SID to enable transparent Wi-Fi between the various routers. I only need two routers but more can be added as required.

In my new house I had a network closet built in my office on the 2.5 floor where all of the various communications cable/wiring terminate as single runs. And at this point is the main router, switch and all peripherals- all Ethernet connected. Most rooms in the house have Cat 6 Ethernet, coax for TVs and Cat 5E for phones.

There is a fiber modem on the outside of the house that feeds to the upstairs network closet where it is connected to the WAN/Internet side of a Netgear R7000 router that also is the DHCP server, etc. A 24 port GB switch connects to the switch side of the R7000 router and all Cat 6 from the other rooms feed to the network closet and the 24 port switch. The TV coax is setup similarly with its own box.

Downstairs mounted on the wall above the AV system, is another Netgear R7000 with the same Wi-Fi SID as the primary router upstairs and is basically setup as a wireless access point with no DHCP server. With this setup a Wi-Fi device can roam anywhere in the house and it will seamlessly transfer its wireless connectivity between routers depending upon which one has the stronger signal strength. This transfer efficiency will depend upon how old the routers are and maybe the particular model. However, basically it should work well with most modern devices that adhere to the Wi-Fi standards.

Here is a link:

Configuring two wireless routers with one SSID (network name) at home for free roaming - Scott Hanselman

 

[California]

Mossroad I tried your suggestion, found an outlet in the house with 240v differential from the original outlet and plugged in the sender there. No improvement in the cabin, a PoE receiver on either leg of the circuit there continually loses connection.

With the PoE sender on the opposite leg in the house 100% signal speed is delivered to the opposite side of my open-air tractor stall, clearly those outlets are fed from the other side of the barn's panel. But 'Ethernet over Powerline' is not going to work to get signal beyond that to feed a subsidiary router in the cabin. Hmmm. Maybe I should try a new, different PoE sender/receiver pair for this final link. Can you string separate PoE links in series? Maybe with an Ethernet switch separating them?

I tried another alternative, PoE to the Netgear router set up in the back window of the farmhouse, facing the cabin across the driveway. This router receives 100% signal and gives better wifi inside the cabin compared to anything else I've tried. But the wifi speed drops off toward the back of the cabin. Anybody know if the wifi repeater I moved into the cabin can repeat signal from this back-window router instead of repeating the house's principal router? I'm going to try that next.

Sdef, what you have done to professional standards, is what I'm trying to accomplish except using Ethernet over Powerline sender/receivers to feed signal to the secondary router. I will set up the secondary router as you described. For my application at home in town EoP worked fine and the remote router receives and repeats 100% signal speed flawlessly. But here at the ranch the electrical wiring is too crude to get EoP signal all the way out to the guest cabin. I'm still experimenting with various solutions.

Here's a photo illustrating the worst of the farm wiring I've encountered. I went down in the farmhouse cellar - dirt floor, low ceiling - to see if it is reasonable to string Cat5e to move the principal router to a better place in the house. Looking up at the wiring there ... just plain scary. The barn and cabin were wired in 1968, 30?? years after this old farmhouse was wired for electricity so their wiring looks cleaner than this but who knows what amateur non-code wiring might be in those outbuildings.

 

[dadster4]

That is what they refer to as "knob and tube" wiring. I used to cut through a lot of walls in older homes in Chicago adding ductwork, it was always "fun" when sparks flew and the lights went out!

 

[MossRoad]

View attachment 456585

I'd be almost as worried about that spider as the wiring. You got brown recluse there? :laughing:

 

[California]

I'd be almost as worried about that spider as the wiring. You got brown recluse there? :laughing:

No.

But Black Widows are common. Shiny black so this isn't one.

 

[California]

It works! :cool2:

I installed two independent Ethernet over Powerline sender/receiver sets in series and get 90% speed at the far end - two buildings away.


Speedtest results observed on cell phone:

13.36 Mbps - phone near principal router in house.

13.45 Mbps - in house with principal router cabled with Cat5 jumper to EoP sender, EoP sender & receiver in same outlet, EoP receiver cabled to drive an old D-Link Wifi router set up to broadcast what comes in its LAN port. (using static IP, DHCP off).

13.3 ~ 13.4 Mbps - EoP receiver moved to barn 100 ft away, plugged in next to barn's sub-panel, receiver driving the same wifi broadcast as above.

Then: (see photo below) Output from the EoP receiver in barn, used as source to feed a second EoP link that originates here in the barn. Each sender/receiver set was sync'd separately so the second link is independent and originates from its Cat5 input, it doesn't listen to the house for its source.

11.8 ~12.3 Mbps - The second EoP link's receiver was moved another 50 ft beyond the barn and into the cabin. It is driving the same D-Link wifi broadcast as above.

Result: wifi service in the cabin fed from this chain of EoP links, is 90% as fast as the signal in the house 150 ft away. This is an improvement over prior, where an EoP receiver tested in the cabin had failed to link to its own EoP sender in the house.

I couldn't find anyone who had combined separate EoP links in series. Amazon's seller of these sets responded to my inquiry with 'don't know'.

Also I've seen 'signal won't cross a breaker'. This signal crosses several breakers to get from the house wiring, to an outlet in the barn, to a circuit in the cabin; the signal crosses breakers at each building's panel. Surge suppressors in customer power strips likely have more effect on signal.

View attachment 457530

 

[MossRoad]

Nice! Way to sleuth it out! :thumbsup:

 

[LittleBill21]

It works! :cool2:

I installed two independent Ethernet over Powerline sender/receiver sets in series and get 90% speed at the far end - two buildings away.


Speedtest results observed on cell phone:

13.36 Mbps - phone held near principal router in house.

13.45 Mbps - in house with principal router cabled with Cat5 jumper to EoP sender, EoP sender & receiver in same outlet, EoP receiver cabled to drive an old D-Link Wifi router set up to broadcast what comes in its LAN port. (using static IP, DHCP off).

13.3 ~ 13.4 Mbps - EoP receiver moved to barn 100 ft away, plugged in next to barn's sub-panel, receiver driving the same wifi broadcast as above.

Then: (see photo below) Output from the EoP receiver in barn, used as source to feed a second EoP link that originates here in the barn. Each sender/receiver set was sync'd separately so the second link is independent and originates from its Cat5 input, it doesn't listen to the house for its source.

11.8 ~12.3 Mbps - The second EoP link's receiver was moved another 50 ft beyond the barn and into the cabin. It is driving the same D-Link wifi broadcast as above.

Result: wifi service in the cabin fed from this chain of EoP links, is 90% as fast as the signal in the house 150 ft away. This is an improvement over prior, where an EoP receiver tested in the cabin had failed to link to its own EoP sender in the house.

I couldn't find anyone who had combined separate EoP links in series. Amazon's seller of these sets responded to my inquiry with 'don't know'.

Also I've seen 'signal won't cross a breaker'. In my case the signal has to be crossing a breaker because the electric service going from the barn's panel out to the cabin starts at breakers in the barn's sub-panel. The signal also crosses breakers when it arrives at the cabin's sub-sub entrance panel. Breakers don't seem to be a barrier. I suspect surge suppressors, maybe in customer power strips, have more effect on signal.

View attachment 457530

it will cross breakers, it won't cross phases, or surge protectors or transformers im told. so if you stay on the same 120v phase it will work. mine has crossed 3 breakers.

 

[Soundguy]

So is the barn sub oaneled off the cabin, and cabin sub paneled from the house?

 

[California]

So is the barn sub paneled off the cabin, and cabin sub paneled from the house?

Similar.

Service Entrance at the house. 100A220V cable from the house out to the barn's sub-panel. Then starting from the barn sub-panel there's a 30A220V cable out to the cabin's sub-sub panel.

Breakers at each end of these primary cables, plus the usual distribution breakers in the panels.

The link 1 to link 2 connection in the photo is in the barn, so its midway to the cabin.

 

[Soundguy]

Ok, cool.

 

[California]

Another note, if someone is watching my trial & error to decide if they might do similar:

The 5 volt wall transformer for the router at the destination of the EoL link, makes interference affecting the EoL receiver.

I've been carrying around a little D-Link router attached to the destination end of my trial EoL links. This broadcasts wifi to my phone where I observe Speedtest and Netgear's WiFi Analytics.

Isolating the router's transformer from the EoL receiver, putting the transformer at a distance using an extension cord from the outlet powering the EoL receiver, improves reliability of the EoL receiver.

This is another reason to not plug EoL devices into a power strip.