homeplug

[peterb]

Thanks for the update on that.. But what is the minimum distance?

You posted as I was updating my post - I think it is 2 metres (just more than an armspan)

[roddines]

I found this......"All single phase socket outlets in any one room shall normally be connected to the same phase of the supply. In larger rooms and other areas, socket outlets connected to any one phase are grouped together and no two socket outlets connected to different phases of the supply are less than 2 metres apart. " I guess thats still easilly done by an electrician! 2M is not so far.

Oh no SNAP! We are both editing at same time!

I guess the 2 metres is to allow for the person who is at least twice as stupid as the person who puts their finger in one power socket!

[Lanky123]

Nice price...They look suspiciously like an unbranded Philips one (ie same case and lights). I have seen the Philips one up close. Maybe they are B grade product or just unbranded from same production line?? I think I would tend to pay a few punds more and get a reputable brand and warranty. If they where £10 cheaper each I'd take a risk. Pretty much 90% of them have the same insides as far as the Homeplug standards go...that is they use oem chips from http://www.intellon.com

There are other vendors too but they dominate. So I guess they are all pretty similar.

If they are a B grade product what might go wrong with them - not meet their rated speed or fail completely?

TBH all Id be using them for is a 2meg internet connection.

[roddines]

Well you could just go for the cheaper 14Mbs product which im pretty sure is forward compatible with the 85Mbps products. Or just take the risk. I cant imaginge they would part work. But B grade could be for ANY reason from poor batch of some parts to colour of case being wrong!

[peterb]

A B grade product is usually one that has been refurbished to mfr specs (often by the mfr) but cannot be sold as new. They usually come with a warranty that may be less than the originally (but not always less)

Roddines - Yes! Well, at least help prevent accidental contact between phases! (No-one can guard against stupidity - hence the Darwin awards!)

[Chimaera_5]

Make sure you get ones that use the homeplug standard (http://www.homeplug.org/home)

Some companies don't which means they wont work with other makes of homeplug, most of them do but it's definitely something to be aware of if you're buying unbranded B grade plugs with the intention of upgrading in the future.

[MarcLister]

I've bought some of these so my brother and I can share my broadband line. They worked OK for a week or two but don't anymore.

My brother has a basement room so we would have to run CAT5 through the dining room and kitchen to get to my brother's room, something Mum isn't too keen on.

However my brother is rapidly getting fed up with the HomePlugs and just wants to lay some CAT5 down. Is there anything I can suggest he does to try and get these to work? I'm back at Uni you see so I can't put any ideas into testing for now.

[aidanjt]

Does the walls not have some kind of cavity to drop cable? You making it sound as if the cable would be running over the dining room table and such.

[MarcLister]

I have thought about dropping the CAT5 down through the floorboards seeing as my room is kind of adjacent (in an above manner) to his. Course this would mean we'd need some engineer or something. We're just planning to get a 40m length of CAT5 and just run it along the skirting board and use some cable tacks hammered in to secure it.

Any ideas where we can get some decent cable tacks? I found some in the bathroom where we store our DIY stuff but they've disappeared. I'd rather get some hammer in ones rather than ones needing a tack gun. The tack guns look like they'll cost £10-15 just to hammer in £2 worth of tacks.

[peterb]

Any ideas where we can get some decent cable tacks?

B&Q

[MarcLister]

Lovely thanks. I'll let little bruv know. Do we need any particular kind for CAT5?

[cougarslam]

think I will get 2 plugs for now to test how well it works in my house (old house wiring prob not the best)

which is the best brand to buy (at a reasonable price)

also will these work ok via multi socket power extension leads/surge protectors.

[atrull]

I use devolos - the 85mbps ones.

they add 1ms or two of latency - nothing serious.

I use a cheap switch to breakout the connection between my router and my office - no need to have a homeplug for each pc!!.

phoneline - dsl router - devolo <mains> devolo - switch - all my pcs

[Chimaera_5]

I've bought some of these so my brother and I can share my broadband line. They worked OK for a week or two but don't anymore.

My brother has a basement room so we would have to run CAT5 through the dining room and kitchen to get to my brother's room, something Mum isn't too keen on.

However my brother is rapidly getting fed up with the HomePlugs and just wants to lay some CAT5 down. Is there anything I can suggest he does to try and get these to work? I'm back at Uni you see so I can't put any ideas into testing for now.

If they worked ok for a week then it suggests that one of the plugs might be defective, in theory there should be no problems.

Have you tried switching them to different sockets? Are any of them running through an extension socket?

Worth playing around with the plugs to make sure they really don't work before giving up on them.

[MarcLister]

Yeah we've done that. One of the plugs was in an extension socket but my brother moved them around a bit and still no luck. I think he's giving up on them prematurely but he's very impatient and we don't get on at the best of times so we're at loggerheads over this.

He just wants to get it all working so we can get rid of his broadband line and just use mine. Mum wants to save the &#163;40 a month his phone line and broadband cost but doesn't want cables all over the house. Its almost impossible to please everybody and so we'll all have to compromise I think.

It doesn't help that my brother listens to a mate of his on MSN who is in Holland and keeps telling us to do this, that and the other. It annoys me that he isn't near us and bosses us around. I also get my brother ignoring what I say and taking what his MSN pal says as gospel.

[roddines]

I've bought some of these so my brother and I can share my broadband line. They worked OK for a week or two but don't anymore.

My brother has a basement room so we would have to run CAT5 through the dining room and kitchen to get to my brother's room, something Mum isn't too keen on.

However my brother is rapidly getting fed up with the HomePlugs and just wants to lay some CAT5 down. Is there anything I can suggest he does to try and get these to work? I'm back at Uni you see so I can't put any ideas into testing for now.

think I will get 2 plugs for now to test how well it works in my house (old house wiring prob not the best)

which is the best brand to buy (at a reasonable price)

also will these work ok via multi socket power extension leads/surge protectors.

If they worked ok for a week then it suggests that one of the plugs might be defective, in theory there should be no problems.

Have you tried switching them to different sockets? Are any of them running through an extension socket?

Worth playing around with the plugs to make sure they really don't work before giving up on them.

I suspect in all these cases you should be carefull not to put ANY kind of high frequency filter between homeplugs. Ie Surge protectors are filters that WILL AFFECT the perfromance of homeplug. It is best to plug them straight into the wall if possible or if you must use a power board make sure it is good quality and without any surge protector.

Surge protectors are high voltage filters (to filter out the likes of lightning strikes, when your neighbour starts up his arc welder at 1am or your brother comes home drunk and drives through the niegbourhood transformer) but they often have the side effect of filtering high frequencies too. This is not considered a problem by the surge protection designers as the mains power runs at a very low 50Hz/60Hz and they never knew that we techies would come along at a later date and want to modulate a range of high frequency radio carriers onto the power line so we could play games, look at porn and watch the crazziness of the world through YouTube.

ie. dont do this...

PC-Homeplug-PowerBoard (with any surge protection)-<Mains>-PowerBoard (with any surge protection)-Homeplug-PC

but do this...

PC-Homeplug-<Mains>-Homeplug-PC

I hope that helps!