Are ethernet powerline adapters a good idea?

[Kjelt]

Wifi , yeah it works untill there is too much traffic on the same bands and you're stuck again.
With a wife and kids using their iPads and phones and neighbours doing the same the complaints are starting (see my previous topic) so I did install another AP for my self 

And last month I upgraded my homenetwork infrastructure to an optical 10Gbps cable between two switches , one on the ground floor and one in the attick where my servers and hobby room are.
From those switches one 10Gbps to my computer, a 4 time 1Gbps with link aggregation to my NAS, and all other devices get a single 1Gbps connection.
Weakest link in my network right now is my 150Mb/s internet connection, i think I am ready for the coming 5 years 

[BillyD]

I've been using a pair of TPLink powerline adaptors at home for over 4 years now to link some upstairs and downstairs devices.
(My dislike for exposed cabling overcame my qualms about the technical elegance of this solution.)
From memory I think these are supposed to be up to 150 mbps and I'd estimate there is less than 10 metres of cable between the two devices but according to the status leds they are only achieving the lowest of the three throughput levels.
This is my third pair, the first and second having each failed after about 6 weeks, but happily this set has been trouble and maintenance free for over 4 years. They run quite hot so they've probably consumed a lot of my electricity by now. Some day I'll get around to running an ethernet cable instead...

[Corporate666]

I have several of these:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AWRUICG?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage

that I have been using for 3+ years and they are fantastic.  I use VoIP phones and this lets me put a high quality Cisco desktop phone wherever I want without worrying about running cables or using shitty WiFi VoIP phones.  I also use them to run a network printer and another computer that's not in a Wifi accessible spot.

The only time I touched them was when I initially set them up.  I've never had to reset them, and they've never lost connection.  I get fast speeds and never any issues printing or with voice call quality. 

Highly recommended.  And never had any noticeable issues with interference.

[NiHaoMike]

I have several of these:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AWRUICG?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage

that I have been using for 3+ years and they are fantastic.  I use VoIP phones and this lets me put a high quality Cisco desktop phone wherever I want without worrying about running cables or using shitty WiFi VoIP phones.  I also use them to run a network printer and another computer that's not in a Wifi accessible spot.

The only time I touched them was when I initially set them up.  I've never had to reset them, and they've never lost connection.  I get fast speeds and never any issues printing or with voice call quality. 

Highly recommended.  And never had any noticeable issues with interference.

That's one of the two sets I have as well. If there's a Fry's near you, they often have that exact kit on sale for $30.

They work quite well over power lines as intended, but they perform outstanding when modified to run over phone lines. I have my modified set running over several hundred feet of old phone line (in rental property) and in all the testing I have done, they perform almost as well as 100BaseT in both bandwidth and latency, not to mention near zero packet loss.

Teardown:


I also have a Trendnet set that also works well but not as good as the TP-Links. Since they're the same price, I can't exactly recommend them. They also have an oddball nonisolated power supply design (isolating the Ethernet port instead) that complicates the phone line mod.

[Monkeh]

Are those as simple as desoldering the transformer and hooking up a cable?

[Monkeh]

TP-LINK may be cheap, but they're not badly built.

[Monkeh]

TP-LINK may be cheap, but they're not badly built.

Generally I would prefer to avoid TPLink consumer products. I've used some of their WiFi routers, and none of them are stable enough to be considered a maintenance free product. They tend to crash or throttle after days or weeks, and especially at high throughput rate or packet rate, such as NAS streaming or when I try to hack someone's computer , they crash pretty quickly.

The same applies to many other cheap devices that have crappy firmware design or crappy thermal design.

Still, I would say TPLink's small business and enterprise products are good for the buck.

Code: [Select]

root@subspace-transceiver2:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo
system type             : Qualcomm Atheros QCA9533 ver 1 rev 1
machine                 : TP-LINK TL-WR841N/ND v9
processor               : 0
cpu model               : MIPS 24Kc V7.4
BogoMIPS                : 366.18
wait instruction        : yes
microsecond timers      : yes
tlb_entries             : 16
extra interrupt vector  : yes
hardware watchpoint     : yes, count: 4, address/irw mask: [0x0ffc, 0x0ffc, 0x0ffb, 0x0ffb]
isa                     : mips1 mips2 mips32r1 mips32r2
ASEs implemented        : mips16
shadow register sets    : 1
kscratch registers      : 0
package                 : 0
core                    : 0
VCED exceptions         : not available
VCEI exceptions         : not available

root@subspace-transceiver2:~# uptime
 21:01:21 up 70 days, 20:28,  load average: 0.07, 0.03, 0.05
Of course, if you're daft enough to run stock firmware.. well, I know many people using these models happily stock, too.

[NiHaoMike]

Are those as simple as desoldering the transformer and hooking up a cable?

Desolder the coupling transformer and coupling capacitor, reinstall the transformer after bending the logic side pins in order to have what was the mains side stand up with the pins facing the Ethernet connector, solder the capacitor in series, and wire it to a common RJ11 socket. I also glued in a piece of scrap aluminum to heatsink the CPU and added a capacitor to the 12V rail.