Powerline ethernet, max distances?

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Ragenrok

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So at work we are building a mobile skid unit that will be linked together and it requires 2 cables, 120VAC supply and Ethernet. I was in my bedroom watching tv while the wife slept and noticed my powerline adapter working away and got to thinking, why cant we do the same this in this scenario and save our selves $1000 in materials by just doing powerline Ethernet and saving an entire cable run.

I've tried googling this but cant find a solid answer, does anyone know the max distance powerline Ethernet can go? It would have ideal conditions in the sense there would be no fuses, breakers or anything between the two adapters so im really hoping this would work lol.

Anyone have any experience with long distance use or anything that could give me a concrete answer?
 
There's no real standard because there's too many variables. Every manufacturer's equipment is different, and even different versions of the same product will have different results.

I'd personally ask how long you're going to be working like that, and judge from there. If it's a few months, you might make it work. If it's more than a year, you're going to be a LOT happier in the long term if you run fiber or copper. It's a bigger up-front cost, but it's going to be FAR less headache and potential down-time. Especially if you're already running power, just adding a fiber to the same run should be a pretty minor addition in cost.

If the contractor is charging that much and you can't do it, maybe look at a wireless point-to-point solution. A pair of outdoor-rated directional antennas can give you pretty high speeds over short distances like from a main building to an outbuilding.
 
Were building the unit, what happens is they unload the skid and then setup the remote station up to 300ft away and run it for 1-2 weeks then pack up and move to the next site. Which means our customer will have to unload and run 300ft of armored/shielded Ethernet cable and connect it to a bulkhead plug, which runs the risk of damage and wear and tear to the cable plug possible interference from having to run 300ft along a 120VAC power cable. This will work but if we could save costs in material (which would get passed onto the customer) and make it way more user friendly for our customers its worth looking into :)
 
Ragenrok said:
Were building the unit, what happens is they unload the skid and then setup the remote station up to 300ft away and run it for 1-2 weeks then pack up and move to the next site. Which means our customer will have to unload and run 300ft of armored Ethernet cable and connect it to a bulkhead plug, this will work but if we could save costs in material (which would get passed onto the customer) and make it way more user friendly for our customers its worth looking into :)
Click to expand...

Yeah, if you're going to be doing this short term, but moving it over and over again, that changes the calculus a lot. Powerline is going to be doubtful to work at that range, and that could change based on the power conditions at each site. It's going to take a bit of troubleshooting and hope at each site for the customer. And what's your fall-back plan if it doesn't work at a particular site?

I'd HIGHLY recommend you bite the bullet and go with a good armored fiber run for this. If you're pushing 300ft, you're near the max range for standard copper Ethernet. It's into the situation where it might work and it might not, depending a lot on noise and the particular switches on either end. A single-mode fiber, on the other hand, should be able to handle up to 1Gb at twice that range without breaking a sweat. Then you just need media converters at either end (like $60-120 for a pair) and you can go right into a standard RJ45 Ethernet.

Wireless would work, but it's going to be more setup and configuration (and relies on a clear line-of-sight).
 
Yeah, I would say fiber or point-to-point wireless AC. Even with a straight run, I don't think powerline will work. If STP maxes at 100 (?) meters, powerline is going to be much less.
 
You can overbuild. You could just use CAT 6A, but you have to ensure that the terminations, punchdown blocks and everything involved is CAT 6A certified. The additional 7db of headroom over CAT 5e will ensure it works at 300' + patch cables of reasonable distance. Otherwise.... I'd go fiber and be done with it.
 
There's also the fact that 1000Mbps powerline adapters (in ideal conditions) typically give you 200Mbps full duplex per device, It can scale a little higher with multiple devices, but NO it doesn't actually give you the throughput that the carrier signal is rated for.
 
Thanks for the info, we're going to be going with cat6 cable but we will also be testing power line at the same time more for my curiosity lol. My spools of 300ft of power cable arrived today so tomorrow I will be playing with it for a bit.

We debated fiber but the cable will be unplugged and transported after each job so we would need a way to unplug the fiber, wrap it up and transport it without damaging the line or getting dust/dirt on the connection end. As for speed our system can work off a wireless g connection just fine so as long as we can manage 50+mbps lab speeds we will be happy, unfortunately this specific application our customer has requested zero wireless signals :(
 
Ragenrok said:
Thanks for the info, we're going to be going with cat6 cable but we will also be testing power line at the same time more for my curiosity lol. My spools of 300ft of power cable arrived today so tomorrow I will be playing with it for a bit.

We debated fiber but the cable will be unplugged and transported after each job so we would need a way to unplug the fiber, wrap it up and transport it without damaging the line or getting dust/dirt on the connection end. As for speed our system can work off a wireless g connection just fine so as long as we can manage 50+mbps lab speeds we will be happy, unfortunately this specific application our customer has requested zero wireless signals :(
Click to expand...

I was hoping someone else would mention it, but one of the benefits of fiber is the removal of any change of a grounding related issue. This usually occurs when the ground plane for the power system is different than the primary building. If you encounter bizarre failures that seem to have no reasoning... it might be a grounding issue. In that instance the CAT cable becoming a secondary ground which ends up creating the ground loop. This is why almost every multi building network uses fiber for the interconnect.

Good Luck!
 
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