Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast
Results 1 to 15 of 39

Thread: wifi to remote shop/barn

  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Surrey BC Ca
    Posts
    51

    wifi to remote shop/barn

    has anyone here used a 'powerline network adapter' to get wifi in a shop? My barn has a subpanel from the main house and is about 100 ft away.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jun 2015
    Location
    Sacramento, CA
    Posts
    2,005
    Those adapters can be kinda slow and buggy. At least that was my experience. Is there no conduit running to the barn that you run an ethernet cable into? Or you can get hardware to do an Wifi bridge over to the barn from the house. Though that will require a bit more knowhow and wont be as cheap as those adapters.
    If at first you don't succeed, redefine success!

  3. #3
    Google "cantenna." This seems to be the most popular way to steal wifi. Here at my kitchen counter, my computer shows three different sources of wifi. My closest neighbor is about 500 feet away, and next is over 800 feet away. Locate the router in the house up as high as possible, preferably next to a second story window facing towards the shop. A second router can be used as a "booster." An old tv dish, mounted upside down with a doongle where the LNB was mounted makes a great wifi receiver.

  4. #4
    It's only 100'? Do you have clear line of sight?
    My garage is about 100' from my house you can pick up a signal from the house AP without me even doing anything special.
    For a robust solution:
    You can pull direct burial Cat 5e burying it a few inches below the ground and wire an AP in the garage. You can even use a POE injector to make it easy. Alternatively, mount and outdoor rated wifi AP with a directional antenna on your house and point it toward the garage. My garage is about 100' from my house you can pick up a signal from the house AP without doing anything special. I'm a fan of Ubiguiti products, they are affordable. Something like : https://www.ui.com/unifi/unifi-mesh-antenna/

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Location
    Deep South
    Posts
    3,970
    I tried wifi over the power lines going to a shop that is a hundred feet away from my router. It worked great . . . until I fired up the table saw. The little device locked up and had to be powered down and back up to restore connectivity. I don't know if my experience would be typical but the electronic noise generated in my particular situation made the technology unusable.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    Medina Ohio
    Posts
    4,515
    my shop is only 75 feet away but it is a metal building. I ended up burying a couple cat 5 cables to have internet and phone in the shop. I just added a wireless router to have wifi for my cell and laptop. I also has a NAS in my basement that I can access from any computer in the lan

  7. #7
    Ethernet over cable will run 100 meters, or a bit over 300 feet, so 100 feet should give you no problems. I'd definitely pull an Ethernet cable. You can run gigabit Ethernet easily.

    If you can't bury it, string it on some poles. Just get the outdoor Ethernet cable.

    I ran above ground Ethernet to an outbuilding at my place - works great.

    Mike
    Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Ormstown, Quebec
    Posts
    2
    I have two D-link powerline adaptors, one in the garage and the other in my shop which is two hundred feet away from the house and they work really well. The only issue I’ve had in two years is with the one in the garage with an older tread mill. The vfd in the tread mill bothered it.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Lake Gaston, Henrico, NC
    Posts
    8,973
    Note to anyone building a separate building from the house for anything: When you trench to install whatever, while the trench is open, lay in a length of black polyethylene pipe. It comes in continuous rolls in long lengths, and doesn't have anything inside to snag on. Pull a length of nylon mason's line by tying a little rag on one end, and suck it through with a vacuum cleaner.

    Sometime in the future, there will be some wire you want to pull that hasn't been invented yet.

    I built new houses for 33 years. I still get second, and third owners coming to thank me for putting those "conduits" from the street to the house.

    The one to our barn, that was built in 1980, has had that conduit used for multiple things that we never thought of to start with.

    Any time you pull a wire with the mason's line, pull another line along with it for next time.

  10. #10
    I ran conduit when I put the garage in. The front walls are 100' apart but the cable run from switch to switch is 225'. It's still within spec but something to be aware about. The 100 meters is from switch to switch.
    Direct burial cable is cheap enough. It's a pain to work with because of the gel but it keeps everything dry. You don't need to bury it very deep, just enough to not break it with running things over it. Like Mike said you don't really need to bury it as long as you can keep it from breaking. It really depends on how many devices you want to connect. My garage has a small apt above it. It needs a video solution and has a bunch of cameras. Therefore, I ran cable and have just been too lazy to wire the punch panel but I'll easily have 10 devices connected with more than half of them being video.
    Yet, I'd go the directional WIFI route if if all I wanted to do is make sure I had internet access for a laptop and a phone in the garage. You certainly would want to mask the SSID and have a strong encryption key unless you're way in the boonies.
    FWIW: my internet provider is wireless. The use a version of a Ubiquiti WIFI device that is more commercial than the one in the link I provided. I'm 1 mile away with direct line of sight and get 20MB/Sec via a 5GHZ channel. Works rain and shine. Sometimes when it storms I lose Sat TV but still have my wireless internet.

  11. #11
    Steve's right, of course, that the distance you need to worry about is switch-to-switch. What I did was measure the distance I needed and added some extra. Then I ordered the cable and let them put the plugs on. I wound up with excess but just looped it (big loop) on one end to take up the extra. As long as you stay below 100 meters (328 feet) you should be fine, even with gigabit Ethernet.

    Mike
    Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Sep 2013
    Location
    Wayland, MA
    Posts
    3,655
    +1 on the Ubiquiti products.

    Although I have a hard wire out to the barn I now get strong signal there from the AP in the front part of the house, ~150 ft since installing the new APs. That said, I'd still pull the wire if it's reasonably doable.

  13. #13
    I tried a repeater and did not have good luck with that. Maybe it was the metal roof.

    I had an ethernet cable run to a wireless modem and that has worked fine.

    Be aware running copper based ethernet cable outside is generally considered a "no no". You definitely do not want to run it through the air. It should be run underground. We elected to run standard Cat6 in conduit. The tech told me fiber optic cable is a better option going between buildings.

    I recommend data/power surge supressors on each end of the line.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    SE PA - Central Bucks County
    Posts
    65,685
    I have hard Ethernet to my shop. I bought a pre-terminated, direct burial rated Ethernet cable of appropriate length off Amazon and routed it between the house and the shop. I did pull it through black poly "water pipe" for easier installation, but the cable is rated to be able to go directly in the soil. Building materials in both the house and the shop precluded using only wireless for reliable service into the shop. Like some others, I do have an access point in the shop to support wireless devices, but the computer out there for my CNC uses Ethernet to insure best performance when I'm transferring files or updating software.
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Jun 2015
    Location
    Sacramento, CA
    Posts
    2,005
    Quote Originally Posted by roger wiegand View Post
    +1 on the Ubiquiti products.

    Although I have a hard wire out to the barn I now get strong signal there from the AP in the front part of the house, ~150 ft since installing the new APs. That said, I'd still pull the wire if it's reasonably doable.
    Yep! Got a whole home network done using Ubiquiti equipment. Good stuff!
    If at first you don't succeed, redefine success!

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •