Home Networking

[Delta7]

Often the garden circuit is on a seperate ring or spur off from the fuse board, with it's own trip breaker etc, those that have these how does these device perform across different rings?

[msssltd]

Plugged straight into the wall, on the same ring, with no heavy start up loads (fridges, freezers, washing machines, microwaves) is about ideal. Things degrade the further you are from ideal.

Like most of these things the tolerances, and so the problems, are not hard and fast. If you are lucky, it's obvious that things are not right as one or more devices completely fail to communicate. More often than not the faults are subtle ones; devices not renewing IP leases, disconnecting when a particular combination of appliances comes on in a particular order within short time frame. The most common issue is unreliable transmission, which causes network packets to be continually retransmitted, bogging down response. Very few people would even notice the network is struggling, as they are mainly accessing the internet through a link with much less bandwidth available.

Stick to the ideal and you can be pretty sure that things will work fine. Outside of ideal, it might work, it might work after a fashion or it might not work at all.

I have lost count of the number of network faults I have resolved that were initially reported as an entirely different issue. You turn up, smile sweetly, check the wires despite being told there is nothing wrong with the network, and it turns out to be the network :)

[coptermanic]

Presumably will work only on one ring main. My house is divided into 3 sub-ring mains, so am I correct in saying the "live" network will be restricted to the ring into which the network cable is fed?

[Disc]

[quote=coptermanic;402781]Presumably will work only on one ring main. My house is divided into 3 sub-ring mains, so am I correct in saying the "live" network will be restricted to the ring into which the network cable is fed?[/quote]

If you go through the threads people have had them working across sub-rings

[coptermanic]

Maybe I didn't describe my sockets system properly. I have 3 rings running from the distribution box [actually 4, but I will not go into that one] for separate sections of the house. Not separate sub-rings off the "main" ring.

[msssltd]

All the ring mains go back to a common bus bar in the consumer unit, so there is an unbroken pathway for transmission.

[coptermanic]

OK, that's what I needed to hear. Thanks.
The USB antennas, are they that much better?

[SRH990]

As previously said, mine are on different rings. Originally my house only had one ring main plus a cooker point and two lighting mains, a fusebox with only 4 fuses! Since then the kitchen is now the study with 3 computers in it (including this one). The cooker point has been converted to a double socket and has it's own fuse within the replacement fuse box. When I converted the garage a few years ago I put a new ring main in for this as I installed 8 double sockets as it was my RC charging room, when I built a conservatory a few years ago, I broke into this ring and extended it for the conservatory. The X-Box 360 was in the conservatory connected via a homeplug directly into a mains socket, the other homeplug is plugged into an extension lead with other computer leads, on a seperate ring and is plugged into the router. I have not had any problem with this connection at all, despite it not being ideal - it's probably as bad a setup as you can make but it works fine. Transfer speeds are much faster than my 10mb broadband connection, plenty good enough for web browsing but not enough for streaming HD video, for this you need the 200mb homeplugs.

[Steve]

Excellent news chaps.

Mine will be on different rings and the originator plug (the one connected into the router) will be plugged into a multi-gang extension lead behind the computer.

The garage/workshop is detached form the house and is on it's own separate ring from the main consumer unit.

As has been said, the Earth and Neutral wires for all circuits are joined back at the main board so there is no issue with continuity there. Only the live wires go through the breakers, and even if they do, there's still continuity so long as they haven't tripped.

I suppose the downside is that I will be feeding my internet access back into the main incoming supply coming into the house as well, out to the street and back to any other nearby houses that are on the same phase in the neighbourhood from the main. In an ideal world, that would be every 3rd house. The units describe a maximum transmission distance of about 200m, which I guess is 200m of wiring rather than as the crow flies. I reckon this distance would pretty soon be used up when you start thinking of going down the road with the signal.

They should come Friday, so we'll see? :):)

[stevieb337]

when you get them mate could you write up a little review of them

cheers steve

[Steve]

[quote=stevieb337;402916]when you get them mate could you write up a little review of them

cheers steve[/quote]

Dunno about a review - it'll either work or it won't! :ack2:

As I've described, my setup will be far from ideal, and all I want to do in the workshop is surf the net - nothing too major. If it achieves that, It'll get a thumbs up from me.

Have no idea of how to measure download speeds or any such stuff. Not really bothered if it works.

I'll get back when I've tried them.

:hat::hat:

[msssltd]

[quote=Steve;402950]Dunno about a review - it'll either work or it won't! :ack2:[/quote]Ahh. You missed the bit about subtle and intermittent faults then :)

[quote]As I've described, my setup will be far from ideal,...[/quote]Don't forget to fit a surge suppressor on the multi-gang :D :D

[Steve]

[quote=msssltd;402985]Ahh. You missed the bit about subtle and intermittent faults then :)

Don't forget to fit a surge suppressor on the multi-gang :D :D[/quote]

I did read that and all interesting stuff. Will just plug it in and see what happens. :)

[Aidi]

Steve,

If this does not work out for you, how far is it from your router to your shed should you need to run a physical cable?

[Steve]

[quote=Aidi;403004]Steve,

If this does not work out for you, how far is it from your router to your shed should you need to run a physical cable?[/quote]

At a guess, I'd say I'd need 30m of cable, maybe more. Biggest reason for avoiding this is I don't want to put a hole through a wall or door/window frame. The way out towards the garage is through our lurvely new extension which is only a few months old so I don't really want to be making a holey mess of it just yet. :svengo: