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Easily adding internet to my barn 250’ from my house

n8in8or

n8in8or

I never met a project I didn’t like
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I have had some security issues lately so I added a Ring security floodlight camera to our house. It’s been really great and made me wish I had internet in my barn so I could have one out there too. My barn is 250-300’ away from the house so adding internet isn’t an easy proposition - of course I could get some direct burial ethernet cable, but we’re hoping to only be here 2-3 more years so it isn’t really worth the effort or expense. For some reason this week I had a flash of brilliance: why not try one of those units that transmits internet over your power lines!? Conveniently, the previous owner of the house had run a dedicated 110V circuit from the house to the barn for a flood light and there is an outlet on this same circuit in the basement - this is perfect because it’s easy for me to plug the adapter in that outlet in the basement and plug an ethernet cable from my router into that. I added a recep out in the barn on that circuit and voila....I have internet in the barn!! I’m super stoked by this. I’ve only had it installed for an hour or so, but so far I’m very pleased. I will update this post as I use it more.

This is the unit. I bought it from Amazon (while I was shopping for rubber underwear @Husker6.5 !!)
NETGEAR PowerLINE 1000 Mbps WiFi, 802.11ac, 1 Gigabit Port - Essentials Edition (PLW1010-100NAS) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01929V7ZG/?tag=jhdiesel-20

I ran wifi tests at multiple points and here are screen shots of the results:

Here is the speed 1’ from the wireless access point in the barn:
E1D127E8-255D-4E94-AFAC-57E0B1B20465.png


Here is the speed from the far interior wall of the barn about 40’ away:
E6E7C40E-3199-4F4F-82D9-DADE1AE6696B.png


Here is the speed outside the barn, above the man door, which is where I’ll be putting the other video camera. This is about 12’ away from the access point, but through the metal siding:
0E912DC2-E6A0-4E35-BC02-EF5946E3A833.png


And here is the speed 1’ away from the router inside the house. As you can see, I lost no signal on that 250-300’ run to the barn:
1FBDC3AA-BC9F-4B9E-9873-6F2B4F58B268.png

The setup was super easy: Plug the adapter into the outlet in the house and plug an ethernet cable into that. Plug the access point into the outlet out in the barn. Wait for it to connect. Done.

I was fortunate that the wiring of my house and barn made this easy. If I didn’t have that 110V circuit I would have tried adding a recep to the sub panel that my 220V barn power runs from and then just used any other recep out in the barn (though I’m guessing it would matter which leg of the 220 that recep is on, so I probably would have had to try a couple different circuits - nice thing is that the access point has an LED indicator letting you know if you’re plugged into a recep that is receiving good internet signal from the adapter or not, so that is helpful).

Hopefully this info helps someone.
 
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I never knew there was something like this either. As soon as I can get my shop moved to the new house I’m going to order one of these things.
 
I lucked out I guess. My shop is only 100 feet away from my router, but I get nearly full signal out there inside a metal building. Even with all the doors closed I still get more than enough wifi to stream music with ease. I can actually mow my yard while streaming music. My house is centrally located on 3 acres, and I get wifi across all of it. I can even go next door to my grandparents house and normally get wifi inside there house(a good 300 feet from my router), through my metal shop, and have enough data to do most surfing.

I hadn't ever seen one of these devices though, so I may get one to put in my shop so I can get wifi across the 6 acres of my grandparents field next door. My wifi does tend to drop off beyond 400-450 feet. I know another option is they sell routers that connect to your ethernet, they put a transmitting antenna outside your house, then a receiver can be placed outside on a building within 1000 feet or so, and then you put a hot spot connected to it.
 
THEFERMANATOR said:
I lucked out I guess. My shop is only 100 feet away from my router, but I get nearly full signal out there inside a metal building. Even with all the doors closed I still get more than enough wifi to stream music with ease. I can actually mow my yard while streaming music. My house is centrally located on 3 acres, and I get wifi across all of it. I can even go next door to my grandparents house and normally get wifi inside there house(a good 300 feet from my router), through my metal shop, and have enough data to do most surfing.

I hadn't ever seen one of these devices though, so I may get one to put in my shop so I can get wifi across the 6 acres of my grandparents field next door. My wifi does tend to drop off beyond 400-450 feet. I know another option is they sell routers that connect to your ethernet, they put a transmitting antenna outside your house, then a receiver can be placed outside on a building within 1000 feet or so, and then you put a hot spot connected to it.
Click to expand...
What are you running for a router right now? That sounds really good.
 
That's awesome. My parent's internet comes from a wireless signal from the grain elevator in town, so the antenna is actually on top of our shop. We just had them install a 2 port switch inside the shop, and can plug a router in there, then there's an ethernet that runs to the house for that internet. Works out great, because the cell reception in our shop was garbage, unless you were by a window, and WiFi wasn't worth a crap either. Where I live with the GF everything is close enough that I get WiFi, but I stay on LTE most of the time because our internet out here isn't worth a shit.

So your barn has a 110 circuit coming from the house, and 220 coming in from the main panel somewhere? Seems kinda odd...
 
Ed HD said:
So your barn has a 110 circuit coming from the house, and 220 coming in from the main panel somewhere? Seems kinda odd...
Click to expand...
Yeah it is odd. When I was rewiring the barn I was surprised to find out that circuit was still hot even though the main power was off. It was on a switch in the garage and it powered a floodlight. I guess the PO wanted to be able to cut the light from the house. Worked out well for me though!
 
n8in8or said:
Yeah it is odd. When I was rewiring the barn I was surprised to find out that circuit was still hot even though the main power was off. It was on a switch in the garage and it powered a floodlight. I guess the PO wanted to be able to cut the light from the house. Worked out well for me though!
Click to expand...
Hopefully you found it out with a MultiMeter! :)

Ohhhh, sure, that makes sense. Odd that there's an outlet that it goes to also, but again, suits your needs well.
 
Ed HD said:
Hopefully you found it out with a MultiMeter! :)

Ohhhh, sure, that makes sense. Odd that there's an outlet that it goes to also, but again, suits your needs well.
Click to expand...
Oh yes, I’m very careful. I test everything with a non-contact voltage detector.

There wasn’t an outlet on that curcuit - I added that to the circuit yesterday.
 
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