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Odd mesh setup confusion on my part
Okay so this is an odd one. We've had an RBK50 and RBS50 mesh in our house for a few years now. It's been great despite the construction of our house (1930s British engineering brick based ) being almost impenetrable to radio signals. I think this is based on a kind of chicken wire construction within the walls. We have the RBK downstairs in the house and the satellite in an upstairs bedroom which link well through the ceiling construction.
As I have just built a workshop at the end of our garden I was wanting to have wifi/ethernet down there and although the RBK is a solid performer, the walls suck so much of the signal each way that come the end of the 75ft garden there is no wifi.
So, I recently purchased a used RBK40 with 2 x RMW30 plug in satellites for £50. I've since plugged one RBW30 in to another bedroom where the signal was poor and it's improved things no end, leaving me 1 x RBW30 and the RBK40. The reason for buying this is the electricity for the workshop is already run down the garden (the workshop is not yet wired up) and I was envisaging plugging in a powerline adapter system (I freed two of them up by installing the first RBW30) one by the router and the other in the workshop and then plugging in the RBK40 in the workshop adapter to create an extension of the house wifi mesh (passwords and network name the same obviously).
I know there will be a performance hit over the cabling and maybe too much of a loss of our 350mbps cable service though if I get 100mbps down there then i'll be happy.
The question then is, is this a workable idea (not ideal I know) and if so, is it just a matter of putting the RBK40 in to it's NODE mode and plugging it all together? I will likely put the last RBW30 in an adjacent building to communicate with the RBK40 but i'm not sure how this node mode really works. There is no salvageable signal left from the RBK50's wifi at the end of the garden and running an Cat5/6/7 cable is too hard now due to structural obstacles in the way.
Thanks in advance for any opinions, views or solutions.
You can only use the RBR40 in AP or router mode.
RBS20, RBS40v, RBS50, EX7700 and EX8000 have ethernet ports.
A non orbi router configured for AP mode can work as well.
9 Replies
If you can use the powerline to get an ethernet connection to the building, you can hardwire in the router (in access point mode) or the satellite.
- Thanks. The Rbw30 doesn’t have ethernet so you can’t hardwire it otherwise it would be easy. I just didn’t know if you can use the RBK40 router purely as a node
You can only use the RBR40 in AP or router mode.
RBS20, RBS40v, RBS50, EX7700 and EX8000 have ethernet ports.
A non orbi router configured for AP mode can work as well.
StevieRuss wrote:
The reason for buying this is the electricity for the workshop is already run down the garden (the workshop is not yet wired up) and I was envisaging plugging in a powerline adapter system
If a qualified electrician runs power from the house to a workshop in the UK they will ensure that the two buildings are on separate circuits with separate fuseboxes and proper isolation. It's the law. That will get in the way of any Powerline circuit. The signal may pass through, but at a greatly reduced level.
Been there, done that.
There are actually two feeds in to the garden. One that used to run to the old air raid shelter which is now been knocked down and replaced with the workshop and the other to an old pond pump which I isolated some years back.
The main feed to the workshop is run from the house consumer unit via its own RCBO (not yet fitted). It was like that when we bought the house and was fitted by an electrical company who I forget the name of though we have a pile of paperwork that came with the house and the receipt was in there (granted quite old now). The underground cable is 4mm SWA.
As you may know in the Uk, three phase runs L1 to one house L2 to the next house L3 to the next house and so on down the street. This means that every house on L1 is actually electrically linked and not entirely isolated which means that an unencrypted power line adapter could actually be connected in other houses on the same phase. Granted the noise would probably make it useless but the connection is kind of there.
As far as the law is concerned, I believe the only item that needs to be addressed is that of exporting the earth from the main building. That can require an earth rod to be fitted at the external building IF it is metal structured (ours is wood) although I don't believe that earth rods offer as solid an earth compared to what is supplied by the grid. I think they can be over 50ohms whereas the grid supply is likely under 1ohm. This is certainly the case with generators we use in the field as there is no other option but to use a copper rod hammered in to the ground.
In our case, I believe that using the earth from the main building (and earthing the armoured sleeve) is absolutely fine. The overall length of the SWA is up towards 30 meters from consumer unit to consumer unit and as the feed runs to another consumer unit rather than to a socket (outlet) then you do not require an RCBO at the house but personally I think it may isolate faults in the workshop from the house's main RCD which would hopefully only throw the RCBO rather than the whole house's 30amp RCD or ideally just the local RCD in the workshops consumer unit.
StevieRuss wrote:
Granted the noise would probably make it useless but the connection is kind of there.
That is the problem, which is what I said.
The signal may pass through, but at a greatly reduced level.
I speak from experience, not from any theoretical understanding.
The Powerline link to my office is, as you say, useless.
