Networking to a garden office?

Hi there,

I have a wireless router with two computers connected to it with cat5 cable,
plus two laptops connecting through wireless. All is fine.

I am planning on having a garden office installed. It will be approx 7
metres from the house. I have been out in the garden with one of the
laptops and the reception is 'low' - perhaps metal venetian blinds are
playing a part in this. Anyway, once the office is in place, with
walls/blinds etc, I imagine the connection could be extremely poor. The
power to the office will be by a mains feed from the fuse box of the house
and will be run underground with armoured cable. If the wireless network
connection is poor, could I run cat5 cable underground to the garden office?
Would it be safe?

Thanks for any info,

Graham.

Graham wrote:

> Hi there,
>
> I have a wireless router with two computers connected to it with cat5
> cable,
> plus two laptops connecting through wireless. All is fine.
>
> I am planning on having a garden office installed. It will be approx 7
> metres from the house. I have been out in the garden with one of the
> laptops and the reception is 'low' - perhaps metal venetian blinds are
> playing a part in this. Anyway, once the office is in place, with
> walls/blinds etc, I imagine the connection could be extremely poor. The
> power to the office will be by a mains feed from the fuse box of the house
> and will be run underground with armoured cable. If the wireless network
> connection is poor, could I run cat5 cable underground to the garden
> office? Would it be safe?
>
> Thanks for any info,
>
> Graham.

Options:
1: Use CAT5 cable rated for outdoor use.
2: Use CAT5 cable run in flexible plastic conduit.
3: Use "Ethernet over mains" adaptors each end.

Personally I would combine 1 and 2 if the mains power has not yet been
installed. Your qualified electrical installer will be able to advise on
separation distances between the two services. As far as I can see, there
are no other safety issues.

Option 3 would only be viable if the mains installation was already
completed. A pair of suitable units can be had from eBay for around 60UKP,
or about 80UKP from mainstream suppliers. They are limited to a maximum
speed of 14Mbps, but on a 7 metre run would easily achieve that.

HTH

Chris

--
Remove prejudice to reply

In article <ddvgg7$e3t$(E-Mail Removed)>, Graham
says...
> Hi there,
>
> I have a wireless router with two computers connected to it with cat5 cable,
> plus two laptops connecting through wireless. All is fine.
>
> I am planning on having a garden office installed. It will be approx 7
> metres from the house. I have been out in the garden with one of the
> laptops and the reception is 'low' - perhaps metal venetian blinds are
> playing a part in this. Anyway, once the office is in place, with
> walls/blinds etc, I imagine the connection could be extremely poor. The
> power to the office will be by a mains feed from the fuse box of the house
> and will be run underground with armoured cable. If the wireless network
> connection is poor, could I run cat5 cable underground to the garden office?
> Would it be safe?
>
Stick with wireless and a desktop PC with a PCI WiFi NIC in that has a
proper aerial on the back. You'll find that whilst the laptop gives a
poor reception, the desktop will give good to excellent. Certainly the
case with the Wifi network I set up at my missuses workshop where the
PC is ALOT more than 7 metres from the house.


--
Conor

If Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened
rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic
music.

Chris Whelan wrote:
> Graham wrote:
>
>> Hi there,
>>
>> I have a wireless router with two computers connected to it with cat5
>> cable,
>> plus two laptops connecting through wireless. All is fine.
>>
>> I am planning on having a garden office installed. It will be
>> approx 7 metres from the house. I have been out in the garden with
>> one of the laptops and the reception is 'low' - perhaps metal
>> venetian blinds are playing a part in this. Anyway, once the office
>> is in place, with walls/blinds etc, I imagine the connection could
>> be extremely poor. The power to the office will be by a mains feed
>> from the fuse box of the house and will be run underground with
>> armoured cable. If the wireless network connection is poor, could I
>> run cat5 cable underground to the garden office? Would it be safe?
>>
>> Thanks for any info,
>>
>> Graham.
>
> Options:
> 1: Use CAT5 cable rated for outdoor use.
> 2: Use CAT5 cable run in flexible plastic conduit.
> 3: Use "Ethernet over mains" adaptors each end.
>
> Personally I would combine 1 and 2 if the mains power has not yet been
> installed. Your qualified electrical installer will be able to advise
> on separation distances between the two services. As far as I can
> see, there are no other safety issues.
>
> Option 3 would only be viable if the mains installation was already
> completed. A pair of suitable units can be had from eBay for around
> 60UKP, or about 80UKP from mainstream suppliers. They are limited to
> a maximum speed of 14Mbps, but on a 7 metre run would easily achieve
> that.
>
> HTH
>
> Chris

I strongly agree Wireless is ok for close-up or for casual outdoor work but
in my experience with several brands of kit it's never as fast or reliable
as a piece of wire.

I seem to recall that if you're running CAT5 next to mains you need to
specify that and the cable costs about twice as much but it's been years
since I bought any so no idea on proces.

If you really want to wander into your garden, and your screen is viewable
in sunlight, put an access point in the garden office.

--
Alan

(E-Mail Removed)
(viciously spam-filtered)

"Alan Walker" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:Z0KMe.927$(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> I seem to recall that if you're running CAT5 next to mains you need to
> specify that and the cable costs about twice as much but it's been years
> since I bought any so no idea on proces.
>
> If you really want to wander into your garden, and your screen is viewable
> in sunlight, put an access point in the garden office.
>
> --
> Alan
>

Alan, Chris,

Thanks for your replies. I need a reliable connection, so I am leaning
towards wires. I have been doing some searches (well, a LOT of a searches)
and there doesn't seem to be any firm evidence about any electromagnetic
interferance between the power and cat5 cables. The only problem would be
if the armoured power cable overloaded and melted and then came into contact
with the cat5. But what are the chances of that happening? The office has
it's own circuit breaker, so presumably this would trip before the situation
even arose?

Graham.

"Conor" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) t...
> Stick with wireless and a desktop PC with a PCI WiFi NIC in that has a
> proper aerial on the back. You'll find that whilst the laptop gives a
> poor reception, the desktop will give good to excellent. Certainly the
> case with the Wifi network I set up at my missuses workshop where the
> PC is ALOT more than 7 metres from the house.
>
>
> --
> Conor
>

Hi Conor,

Thanks for your reply. Is it an 802.11b or 802.11g connection that you
have? Is signal quality always good and consistant, or do you get
occassional drops?

Graham

In article <ddvgg7$e3t$(E-Mail Removed)>,
"Graham" (E-Mail Removed) says...
> Hi there,
>
> I have a wireless router with two computers connected to it with cat5 cable,
> plus two laptops connecting through wireless. All is fine.
>
> I am planning on having a garden office installed. It will be approx 7
> metres from the house. I have been out in the garden with one of the
> laptops and the reception is 'low' - perhaps metal venetian blinds are
> playing a part in this. Anyway, once the office is in place, with
> walls/blinds etc, I imagine the connection could be extremely poor. The
> power to the office will be by a mains feed from the fuse box of the house
> and will be run underground with armoured cable. If the wireless network
> connection is poor, could I run cat5 cable underground to the garden office?
> Would it be safe?
>
Yes. The problem with running wired ethernet between buildings is
that the earth potential can be significantly different, but as the
office will be fed from the house consumer unit this should be
insignificant. Easiest would be to run the cable in some plastic
conduit - you won't need to worry about using a special grade of Cat5
if it's not exposed anywhere along the run (apart from where it
terminates inside the office and house). While you're at it you
might as well run an extra cable or three - if there's a problem with
one it's a lot easier just to swap to another cable rather than
running a new one, you can also use the spare conductors for a phone
or similar.
The usual advice is to not run network cabling close to power cabling
where it can be avoided, but I'm not sure if this applies in the case
of buried armoured cable, which should be pretty well screened
anyway.

> Alan, Chris,
>
> Thanks for your replies. I need a reliable connection, so I am leaning
> towards wires. I have been doing some searches (well, a LOT of a
> searches) and there doesn't seem to be any firm evidence about any
> electromagnetic
> interferance between the power and cat5 cables. The only problem would be
> if the armoured power cable overloaded and melted and then came into
> contact
> with the cat5. But what are the chances of that happening? The office
> has it's own circuit breaker, so presumably this would trip before the
> situation even arose?
>
> Graham.

Assuming you are in the UK, your proposed mains installation will need to
be done to BS7671 by someone authorised to do so or you will need to submit
a proposed method to the local council and then have it inspected by them.
Either way, there will be no issues with safety.

In my experience (as an industrial electrician with 40 years experience) the
electromagnetic influences from running *any* signal cable close to an
*armoured* cable at normal household levels for only 7 metres will be nil.
(Electromagnetic influence is something that the circuit designer should
take in to account under BS7671 anyway.)

BTW, I second the advice given elsewhere to run more than one cable.

Chris

--
Remove prejudice to reply

On 17 Aug 2005 19:15, Rob Morley <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>you might as well run an extra cable or three

That was something I would definitely second... and remember that a
wired connection will support 100 Mbps while you'd need USB 2 and
might still not get (depending on signal strength) great speeds on
any wireless connection... It is not important for internet access
(at present) but things will change over the years... Peter M.

In article <cZLMe.9980$(E-Mail Removed)>,
(E-Mail Removed) says...

> Assuming you are in the UK, your proposed mains installation will need to
> be done to BS7671 by someone authorised to do so or you will need to submit
> a proposed method to the local council and then have it inspected by them.
> Either way, there will be no issues with safety.

Mine was recently done by a Part P Competent 'spark', and no council
inspection was required.