Powerline extender affected by line phase

[bscloutier]

I am having network issues with a Powerline pair. These were working okay if not perfectly but then I had some electrical work done. 

The house has two 120VAC phases. I am assuming that one end of this pair got shifted onto the other phase. Should that be a concern?

Otherwise I need to track down the interference. I am isolated and in the country so there are no other extenders in use anywhere around here. I use these to get network out in the separate garage which is too far for wifi.

[plemans]

Not sure exactly what you mean by "phases". 

If you're meaning circuits, crossing different circuits can cause issues 

[bscloutier]

If you do not understand phases, I would recommend that you see if you can figure out how you get 220VAC and 110VAC circuits out of the same breaker box.

With the current setup I was getting about 43% of PING packet replies taking over 200 milliseconds and about 3% over a entire second. That is horrible!

I swapped adjacent breakers (moves my outlet from L1 to L2 or L2 to L1 I dunno). Now I am seeing just 7% of the PING packets over 200ms. PING packets are initial packets after a quiet time and those taking longer than wired Ethernet given the over-the-power-line technology is probably normal. This is a significant performance improvement!

Does the "phase" matter? Well not explicitly. But the transformer external to the house separates circuits in the house into L1 and L2. Trying to communicate from one tap on that transformer to the other out there is a little too much of a challenge for these Powerline extenders.

In my case there are 3 breaker boxes and a long length of buried cable in conduit between the router in the study and the barn (a.k.a a detached garage). These extenders work admirably give that situation. Well, so long as you don't make it harder for them than it needs to be.

No problem. I am used to answering my own questions.

[plemans]

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@bscloutier wrote:

If you do not understand phases, I would recommend that you see if you can figure out how you get 220VAC and 110VAC circuits out of the same breaker box.----Pretty sure its just a difference in how you refer to things either based on region or whatever. I've wired home/setup mains circuit breakers. Just never heard of anyone refer to it as phases. 

 Powerline is sensitive to interference. Crossing "phases" certainly can cause issues/interference. 

So can high draw appliances, gfci outlets, arc fault breakers, cheap cell phone charges, old/bad/poorly done wiring. 

[bscloutier]

So the breaker change improved things but didn't eliminate my communications problems. I decided to look further and the NEMA enclosure containing the control I am communicating with used a plug strip inside. Upon (destructive) disassembly I found a protection circuit and filter.

Replacing the strip with a very very cheap one that I knew didn't have anything extra inside. completely eliminated any packet loss. The longest PING was 40 msec.

So they tell you NOT to use an extension cord or plug strip. The reason is that these additional circuits are typically involved. You should be able to use an extension cord and any plug strip so long as it doesn't include this stuff. Explaining that would apparently be too difficult and they assume go too far over our heads.

The Culprit

[michaelkenward]

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@bscloutier wrote:

So they tell you NOT to use an extension cord or plug strip. The reason is that these additional circuits are typically involved. You should be able to use an extension cord and any plug strip so long as it doesn't include this stuff. Explaining that would apparently be too difficult and they assume go too far over our heads.

Nice bit of research. You have some real experimental evidence that confirms what some of us have said over the years.

There is nothing wrong with using extension blocks and stuff in Powerline networks, but you have to use the dumbest mains kit you can find. Anything that promises to protect you from interference, lightning strikes, or alien invaders is also likely to mess around with the Powerline signal.