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Ceiling Mount AP Suggestions

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Casey Mills

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I'm buying a new home and want to have a great wireless network. What suggestions do you have for smoke detector style access points? This site seems to mainly focus on standalone routers.

I have about 3200 square feet I want to cover. One AP upstairs and one downstairs will likely do the trick. There aren't that many walls to penetrate.

Currently I'm considering a three pack of Ubiquiti access points that have POE. http://amzn.com/B005EORRBW They are only 802.11N but the price is good.
 
What all devices will be using the wireless? How close is your house to other houses? The smoke detector style AP's will be more expensive than other type wireless AP's and routers. I have used the Ap's you are talking about (in fact I still have one in use in my garage) and while they are great 2.4ghz Ap's, I would not say they would create a "great wireless network" by todays standards. If your house in somewhat remote from other houses then they might work well, if not (depending on the type of wireless clients you have) I would be looking at AP's that can also work on the 5ghz band. In fact I would (and did) look at wireless AC AP's and wireless routers for the best wireless experience. The problem is the smoke detector style wireless AC products are very expensive.
ADD: Just as a note, I have a 3500sf two story house and I had two of these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0089QB1SC/?tag=snbforums-20
one upstairs and one downstairs and had okay but not great wireless. After reading some articles on this site I tried one of these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00K3EPYP4/?tag=snbforums-20 and it is way better than the others I have. In fact the one Asus is all I need to cover my entire house. This and I only have wireless N clients, but changing to a wireless AC access point made a huge difference.
 
A few Chromecasts, two Android cell phones, iPad, and laptop. I try to keep everything wired if I can. I already purchased 2000 feet of cat6 cable.
 
I think 5 GHz wireless 40MHz mode makes for a better and faster home network. The problem is your are not going to be able to cover a large home with one wireless device even the ASUS routers will not cover in 5GHz only. This means you are going to need multiple wireless devices. I think the smoke detector style look the best. As far as placement I just moved mine around until I had good coverage. The 5GHz does not penetrate a lot of walls so keep that in mind on placement. I think I get about 2 walls of penetration. I noticed 5GHz will not penetrate through a bathroom and cover the other side. So this is what I have learned. Maybe one of the expert wireless guys can help you with coverage.

I bought 3 Cisco WAP321 wireless units. There is a link on this site where they cost about $80 new off Amazon. Once you install 5GHz only you need to buy all your wireless devices with 5GHz support. I don't think this is a problem any more as all new devices seem to have this. I think you will find 5GHz makes for a much faster network with less interference from other networks.

PS
I looked at my set up and I only have to penetrate 1 wall with all 3 WAP321 wireless units. So I may be over stating 2 wall penetration. But because of this lack of penetration it makes for almost no interference from neighbors so this gives you the fastest network possible.
 
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make sure if you're mounting on the ceiling that you have plenum rated cables - it's a fire-hazard thing... esp. if one is running POE - 44VDC at some decent current rates...

Also check out Engenius, their ceiling mounted AP's have been commented well upon - and consider the Cisco WAP321's...
 

Probably the last area I worry about for coverage, lol...

Punching thru the bathroom to another room - that's another concern - I've seen tub/shower units made out of thin cast-iron, and believe you me, they're pretty effective attenuators... fibreglass, not so much, but some tile material is a pretty effective block as well...
 
Careful about plenum rated cable and anything you put above the ceiling.
Fire insurance company loves these kinds of "outs"
 
Careful about plenum rated cable and anything you put above the ceiling.
Fire insurance company loves these kinds of "outs"

Indeed - and a great point - basically to "code" assume the wires are safe, but also ensure that the wires you put into the ceiling/walls are safe...

Going into hard installs - get with a professional... preferably one with experience and is bonded/licensed to do the work.
 
I know at some point we switched to plenum rate cables at work before I retired. Is plenum rated cable required for private homes? I know my electrical cables are not plenum rated and some of them are in the ceiling.

My bathrooms have tile that seems to block the 5GHz signal.
 
I think SteveCH and I have disclaimed as much as we can - if the wires are behind walls or ceilings, then local electrical codes do apply, esp. with POE pushing voltages and currents the way that it can... and depending on the locale, it can be private homes as well as business...

basic telephone wire, and cat5 without POE is a lesser concern perhaps, but still better to build to code in case of fire or other incident..
 
I think if the electrical code had a barring on this then all the electrical wire would be plenum grade in all the private homes.

If you have basic telephone service the phone company runs 48 volts on the wire. This was to run the phone incase of a power outage. I think the original POE was 48 volts also.

I don't think I will bother with plenum grade wire in my house when I string CAT5e this fall. There is not going to be enough of it to cause problems in case of fire. There is a lot more electrical wire in my house than CAT5e. I have 5 breaker boxes in my house including the garage.

Plenum wire came about because PVC coated wire gave off poison gases when it burned.
 
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I think if the electrical code had a barring on this then all the electrical wire would be plenum grade in all the private homes.

If you have basic telephone service the phone company runs 48 volts on the wire. This was to run the phone incase of a power outage. I think the original POE was 48 volts also.

I don't think I will bother with plenum grade wire in my house when I string CAT5e this fall. There is not going to be enough of it to cause problems in case of fire. There is a lot more electrical wire in my house than CAT5e. I have 5 breaker boxes in my house including the garage.

Plenum wire came about because PVC coated wire gave off poison gases when it burned.

Are you doing the pulls or are you having a contractor do it?

I actually had a contractor do mine at the house - and a good tip - most of the effort is on the pull, the material, relatively speaking is a smaller part of the cost, so don't pull one, pull two, leaving the second one disconnected until needed.

I did the contractor route, as he did it in two days, including the planning, pulling cables, putting in the wall sockets, etc...

FWIW = POTS is 48V, but generally very low current - the old school phone with actual bells, the ringer current can be quite high, but generally, there's a REN value to aim for on POTS, and that keeps the overall current levels low...
 
I already have a most of a spool of wire. I will do the pulls. I may get someone else to terminate it. I have a punch down tool but I don't own any crimpers. I also only have a 10/100 tester. So I may farm it out. Depends on whom I can find.
 
Based on the last certification I had to do, Plenum is getting to be required in places it wasn't needed before.
Eg. Drop ceiling, False soffets, etc. always were considered a plenum and have always required it.
Some cities (San Fran, NYC, Houston) require Plenum in all commercial installs as well as physically shielded (EMT or other piping if the cables are not in wall)
Residential usually does not have a plenum requirement in single family dwellings.
All multi-family units require it where its required commercially.

9 times out of 10 an installer will use plenum where it is not required for two reasons
A. they don't know the exact law.
B. the fire marshal is a PITA and will write up violations based on how they interpret the law.

TL:DR
If its your own home, and you are running the cables in normal insulated walls/ceiling (not a drop or false) use regular cable
else use plenum.
 
I agree if it was commercial Plenum would be required. The funny thing is there is so much PVC covered other wire and pipe that the little bit of communication wire seems silly to require only it to be Plenum covered.
 
On topic, I'd probably recommend 4 mikrotik maps or caps. Overkill, but would give coverage everywhere plus outside.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I'm buying a new home and want to have a great wireless network. What suggestions do you have for smoke detector style access points? This site seems to mainly focus on standalone routers.

I have about 3200 square feet I want to cover. One AP upstairs and one downstairs will likely do the trick. There aren't that many walls to penetrate.

Currently I'm considering a three pack of Ubiquiti access points that have POE. http://amzn.com/B005EORRBW They are only 802.11N but the price is good.
I agree if it was commercial Plenum would be required
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