Extending WIFI into workshop.

[AndyP]

This, to me, is a good reason to have IT in the workshop. I struggled for over an hour working out how to get the things in straight. Only after coming up with a solution did I come indoors and look up how to do it.

Unfortunately it's too late to run cable into my workshop and even with a wifi extender the signal is not good enough for rapid internet searches and viewing videos. Just about copes with TMS which for the current ashes series is broadcast live on youtube for non UK residents.

 

[RogerS]

.....
.... run cable into my workshop ....

One of my better ideas

 

[Rob]

This, to me, is a good reason to have IT in the workshop. I struggled for over an hour working out how to get the things in straight. Only after coming up with a solution did I come indoors and look up how to do it.

Unfortunately it's too late to run cable into my workshop and even with a wifi extender the signal is not good enough for rapid internet searches and viewing videos. Just about copes with TMS which for the current ashes series is broadcast live on youtube for non UK residents.

Can you run a long Ethernet cable from one of the ports of your router to as close to the workshop as possible....plug a wireless access point into that....keep it high up....then wirelessly access that from your wifi devices in the workshop.

I say this because my house is large.....its ranch style so long. My router is right at one end and I have to run 2 WAP's to extend wireless throughout the house. Now I just happen to have run Cat5e throughout my walls when I built the house so I have Ethernet sockets in every room and a patch bay where the router is. However, there is no reason you shouldn't simply take a cat 5 cable (or 6 now) and shove it in the back of one of the outs from your router....take it as close to the workshop as you can and plug a WAP into it.

This wouldn't work of course if your workshop is miles from your house.

 

[AndyP]

At the moment Rob I have one of these netgear WIFI extender. The workshop is about 30 metres from the back of the house. I think he operating distance is supposed to be between 60 an 80 feet. So I am pushing it a bit. I do not think that I could get a WAP any closer.

 

[9fingers]

Homeplug units - probably early Homeplug 1.0 standard ones cheap secondhand would possibly suffice.

I don't know when these came available with French plugs on so you might have to use UK ones with adaptors.

Bob

 

[RogerS]

Homeplug units - probably early Homeplug 1.0 standard ones cheap secondhand would possibly suffice.

I don't know when these came available with French plugs on so you might have to use UK ones with adaptors.

Bob

Yup...and watch your neighbourly French ham radio enthusiast tear his hair out :?

 

[Rob]

At the moment Rob I have one of these netgear WIFI extender. The workshop is about 30 metres from the back of the house. I think he operating distance is supposed to be between 60 an 80 feet. So I am pushing it a bit. I do not think that I could get a WAP any closer.

Right, that's your problem Andy....at least in my experience. The devices where they wirelessly pick up the signal from the source wifi device and then "boost" it have never worked in my setup and believe me I've tried. I've now settled on only ever using hard wired connection from the source to the device which will then broadcast the signal further afield. So as per my original suggestion, I recommend you get a WAP (not a booster) and then cable that with Ethernet directly to one of the exit ports in your router. Place the WAP as high and close to the workshop as possible and that will broadcast Waaaaay further than a booster. Put it this way, my kitchen is nearly 50 feet wide at its widest part and it not only reaches the other end with no loss of signal strength, but I can walk-up another 20 metre hall before it loses one bar of signal strength. By the time its in our bedroom, its through 2 9" masonry walls and is pushing 40 metres away and still has 2 or 3 bars.

Bottom line WAP devices hard cabled are considerably superior than boosters which only take a wireless in. That's the bottleneck...the fact its a wireless input that then gets boosted.

 

[RogerS]

.....my kitchen is nearly 50 feet wide at its widest part .....

We want pictures!! 50ft is 1.5 times the width of my house

 

[AndyP]

Can anyone confirm if Homeplugs will work across different consumer units? - see photos below. I have read differing views on line about this.

Secondly will a WAP (wireless access point) transmit any further than the exiting WIFI router.

Here is a view of the back of the house. The WIFI router is about 5 metres behind the door on the left.


The view from in front of that LH door to the workshop. The workshop is the RH half of the barn.


This is the consumer unit for the workshop and garage that is sitting above the mains feed.


The main consumer unit for the house ( and therefore the router ) is in the house under the stairs.


I then have a third consumer unit for the barn and workshop.


If I use a WAP I could only get it as close as the RH window in the first photo so signal would still have to transmit best part of 30 metres.

 

[RogerS]

....
Secondly will a WAP (wireless access point) transmit any further than the exiting WIFI router.

....

It depends on how long the Ethernet cable is between the WAP and the router !!

 

[AndyP]

Ethernet cable from Router to WAP would be about 15metres. Would have to go from router down into garage along garage ceiling and back up to TV cabinet

 

[9fingers]

I have homeplug running through 3 serial consumer units and working tolerably but I do have a lot of other interference on my supply which "normal" installations would not have.

Bob

 

[AndyP]

Do you mean the "BRUB"?

Not had a chance yet to see if homeplugs are available here. I have a cock to get ready for lunch tomorrow so will check later.

 

[9fingers]

Do you mean the "BRUB"?

Not had a chance yet to see if homeplugs are available here. I have a cock to get ready for lunch tomorrow so will check later.

No my mains borne interference comes from using 3 phase inverters and another scheme of neutral-earth signalling.

BRUB is virtually zero bandwidth and idle most of the time so creates no measurable interference.

I shall be doing some ethernet over BRUB experiments soon when I get a spare round-2-it

Bob

 

[Rob]

That is a fair old distance between the house and the barn for sure. My experience with wired WAP's (ie Ethernet cable directly to the router) is that they're every bit as good as the router itself. My experience with 2 different brands (one Netgear) of wifi boosters were that they were really quite poor.

And there's no way you could run a cable (Ethernet) from the house to the barn, even if it was overhead?

If not then if you can borrow a friends WAP and test it I would suggest that's worth a try, buying one just to see if it could work might mean £50 up the swanny!

However, there are no obstructions if you can get the WAP right by that window so the line of sight is good. As I say, my house is long and it covers a lot of ground. Here's my kitchen Roger. The light in these shots is terrible so apologies for that. The people in the later ones are a film company using my kitchen for an advert (for Laila rice and curry stuff )

 

[Rob]

Here's a slightly earlier shot............little more "al fresco" at this stage of the build

 

[Rob]

so I've just paced out the distance from the Wap to edge of kitchen and from thence up hall to bedroom door where I'm getting 2 bars from the WAP on an iphone. That's around 28 metres so comparable to your 30 and there is no line of sight in my case. There are two internal block walls and various doors. So I think it could work though you wouldn't have full signal strength unless you specified a powerful broadcast option for the WAP which would of course cost more.

 

[AndyP]

Rob, so it would seem that homeplugs might be a safer bet.

Bob, they are available over here, at least the Netgear Powerline range is available on Amazon for about €50-€60 euros a pair.

 

[9fingers]

If the market is anything like here, continual upgrade to units for steaming multichannel video etc, has filled the used market with lower data rate ones.
Also if for any reason it does not work on your set up, you can resell for what you paid.

Bob

 

[Robert]

I've never found netgear stuff to be much good! they make the Virgin superhub i think and that is rubbish...

TP link seems to be good and slightly cheaper. In fact I'd probably buy unbranded stuff over netgear!

There is open source firmware for a lot of routers that gives you the option to increase the radio power on many brands. http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/index I've not tried it and i don't know how well it gets signal back from the device. Homeplugs are probably the way to go.

 

[Rob]

+1 for TP Link. Replaced my primary router with one only a month ago and its the best I've ever had.

 

[justaskin]

Hi AndyP
Go into your web browser and look up "Bluetooth rifle" this can extend your signal over that distance, but don't use the workshop for security items like banking because others can see the bluetooth signal. I have read that the range can be upto 1Km.

Regards

Richard