Best powerline equipment when GFCI is part of the picture?

[oldserverguy]

Background:
The house and my extra building with office are both on the same panel
Panel has a whole house surge protector (it's SW Florida)
No GCFI breakers in the panel but extra building is close to or 100% GFCI (per code) except for A/C unit
The exterior walls of both are concrete block with stucco
There is continuous concrete between the two buildings
Already exhausted connecting the two together with wireless
Utilize two sets of Netgear Powerline PL1010V2 adapters (have multiple distinct networks), 1x1 and 1x2
Just changed from Xfinity cable to Frontier fiber and have an Frontier Arris modem (no Eero)
The new equipment location changed to my wife's studio
All outlets check out as being properly wired
The 120 VAC outlets nearest the cabinet where the equipment is located provided 0 (zero) service to my office
Another outlet in office provided poor service to my office
Another outlet provides marginal service to the office so that's what they are plugged in right now
The studio is likely behind a GFCI that was installed when the living room got floor outlets

Question:
What product(s) would be advisable in this situation?

 

[degrub]

If you have a spare rg6 coax between the two locations, moca 2 or 2.5 will be much faster and more reliable.

the issue could as simple as corroded connections in the electrical panel or outlets and whatever else that is plugged into those circuits and others feeding back into the house wiring. Hire an electrician to do any cleanup work.

 

[drinkingbird]

Background:
The house and my extra building with office are both on the same panel
Panel has a whole house surge protector (it's SW Florida)
No GCFI breakers in the panel but extra building is close to or 100% GFCI (per code) except for A/C unit
The exterior walls of both are concrete block with stucco
There is continuous concrete between the two buildings
Already exhausted connecting the two together with wireless
Utilize two sets of Netgear Powerline PL1010V2 adapters (have multiple distinct networks), 1x1 and 1x2
Just changed from Xfinity cable to Frontier fiber and have an Frontier Arris modem (no Eero)
The new equipment location changed to my wife's studio
All outlets check out as being properly wired
The 120 VAC outlets nearest the cabinet where the equipment is located provided 0 (zero) service to my office
Another outlet in office provided poor service to my office
Another outlet provides marginal service to the office so that's what they are plugged in right now
The studio is likely behind a GFCI that was installed when the living room got floor outlets

Question:
What product(s) would be advisable in this situation?

GFCI should not interfere at all (as long as it isn't tripped).

As @degrub mentioned, MOCA will be leaps and bounds better than powerline.

 

[tgl]

Already exhausted connecting the two together with wireless

Enlarge on that, please ... exactly what did you try?

I'm wondering if point-to-point wireless gear could help you. I concur with the other responders that if MOCA is possible then it'd be better than powerline --- but of course, coax isn't going to magically appear if it wasn't built in.

 

[drinkingbird]

Enlarge on that, please ... exactly what did you try?

I'm wondering if point-to-point wireless gear could help you. I concur with the other responders that if MOCA is possible then it'd be better than powerline --- but of course, coax isn't going to magically appear if it wasn't built in.

That's what the hammer drill is for

 

[tgl]

That's what the hammer drill is for

Sure, but if you are making a new hole in the wall, you should feed some Cat6 cable through it not coax

 

[oldserverguy]

The garage and house are separate buildings so running ethernet in the air between would ugly - the CEO would veto it. Below ground isn't reasonable. The garage doesn't have any cable so MOCA is out. These are all things I looked at several years ago. I have a free 240VAC circuit but it doesn't have an insulted neutral. I'm,stuck using powerline as I currently do but there are issues with where it has to be plugged in. Note that the current powerline have only a neutral and hot (they are two prong).

So what's an exact powerline product that looks like it would work for my situation.

 

[drinkingbird]

The garage and house are separate buildings so running ethernet in the air between would ugly - the CEO would veto it. Below ground isn't reasonable. The garage doesn't have any cable so MOCA is out. These are all things I looked at several years ago. I have a free 240VAC circuit but it doesn't have an insulted neutral. I'm,stuck using powerline as I currently do but there are issues with where it has to be plugged in. Note that the current powerline have only a neutral and hot (they are two prong).

So what's an exact powerline product that looks like it would work for my situation.

Ah it sounded like the buildings were attached.

I would get two Ubiquiti Nanostation 5AC Locos and set up a wireless link between the buildings. Put your router/AP of choice on either end. The pair will run you around $120, a bit more with a couple POE injectors. There are cheaper ones on Amazon that will probably work, can't vouch for those. A couple other better known brands with P2P units are TP Link and Trendnet, but Nanostations are the gold standard. I believe @tgl is selling a pair in the for sale forum actually, not sure which model.

If powerline isn't working, switching brands is unlikely to make any difference.

If you have a free dedicated circuit/wire I guess you could potentially use that wire to make a "fake" power line connection between the buildings, dedicated, use the ground for neutral if needed. But that isn't exactly "kosher" as far as electrical code goes. As long as you totally separate it from the rest of the system (the wire only connects to that dedicated "dummy outlet" on either end, and clearly label the outlets, it might work.

 

[Crimliar]

It might seem an odd and "dirty" way to do it, but if there are any "wastewater" pipes between the two parts of the property, these could be used as conduit for an ethernet cable. Obviously, the pipe needs to be of a more than sufficient diameter, and consideration would need to be given to it having a comparatively short life before needing replacement!

 

[tgl]

I would get two Ubiquiti Nanostation 5AC Locos and set up a wireless link between the buildings.

Yeah. The 2AC models (2.4GHz instead of 5GHz band) might be a better choice given that you have to punch signal through a couple of concrete-block walls, but probably anything in that product line will work. A caution is that you won't get above ~300Mbps throughput with any of Ubiquiti's models, even if the spec sheet claims differently --- they become CPU-bound around there. But if that's fast enough then this is an alternative you should seriously consider.

Put your router/AP of choice on either end. The pair will run you around $120, a bit more with a couple POE injectors. There are cheaper ones on Amazon that will probably work, can't vouch for those. A couple other better known brands with P2P units are TP Link and Trendnet, but Nanostations are the gold standard. I believe @tgl is selling a pair in the for sale forum actually, not sure which model.

I am indeed, but I'd recommend them anyway

If powerline isn't working, switching brands is unlikely to make any difference.

I have (well had, now) a use-case where AV2000 powerline gear worked significantly better than G.hn gear. But given the lack of a reliable ground I wouldn't bet on any make of PL gear working well for you. My NanoBeams, on the other hand, were rock solid once aligned. I had a test script sending a ping across that link every half dozen seconds, and in the 5-plus months it was running it recorded exactly one dropped ping (out of ~2 million total). This despite sometimes less than ideal circumstances, such as wife parking a vacuum cleaner directly in the signal path...

 

[drinkingbird]

Yeah. The 2AC models (2.4GHz instead of 5GHz band) might be a better choice given that you have to punch signal through a couple of concrete-block walls,

Yeah I was thinking mounting them outside. I'm not sure even 2.4 will make it through concrete with any usable throughout. At the very least need to put them inside of windows.

The 5ghz models can hit 400 to 500 at shorter distances. But plan on 200 to 300 and hopefully be pleasantly surprised (though that should be plenty either way).

 

[drinkingbird]

I have (well had, now) a use-case where AV2000 powerline gear worked significantly better than G.hn gear.

Yeah should have been more clear, if PL isn't working *at all* unlikely another brand will be any different.

 

[tgl]

Yeah I was thinking mounting them outside. I'm not sure even 2.4 will make it through concrete with any usable throughout. At the very least need to put them inside of windows.

Facing them through windows might help, although I'm not sure about the WAF level compared to out-of-sight locations within the buildings. In any case, try it before you assume it won't work. (My new digs are in a high-rise with concrete slabs between the units, yet I can still see annoyingly strong signals from my neighbors.)

It might be worth pointing out here that the main difference between the PTP units we're suggesting and run-of-the-mill wifi gear is their highly directional antennas. That comes with the cost of having to be finicky about initial alignment; but it does mean that they can punch through obstacles that standard gear will not, even though the total output power has to conform to the same FCC regs. You still didn't say which wifi solution you tried before; but if it wasn't designed-as-PTP gear then it's not in the same league.

 

[oldserverguy]

The current adapters I have are only 2 prong so must be using hot and neutral. Most new units use 3 prongs - I'm guessing they use neutral and ground which would seem to be better. Thoughts?

 

[degrub]

If you have 120v L-N-G plugs you can try the AV 2000 type modules mentioned above. Limit it to just one pair of modules .
you may see a little improvement or none at all. Even then, sometimes they don’t work. Make sure you can return them.

point to point wireless mentioned earlier should be faster and more reliable.

 

[tgl]

FWIW, Zyxel's G.hn powerline adapters have a setting that is explicitly intended to make them work on ungrounded circuits. I found that they didn't work as well as AV2000 adapters for me, but there was a ground present in my case; results might be very different without it. You can read more about my results in this thread.

I still stand by the opinion that PTP wireless is a more promising approach for you.

 

[oldserverguy]

I have all grounded outlets. Unfortunately we had multiple power failures late yesterday that seems to have done in the two "receivers' in my office. Will need to order something today.

 

[L&LD]

If power fluctuations are the norm for your area, that is a good reason to not buy any further PLA products.

PTP Wireless is the best suggestion so far (used with a quality UPS, of course).

 

[oldserverguy]

It's SW Florida. They would good for about 4 years - yesterday was abnormal. The panel has it's own surge protector.

 

[tgl]

If power fluctuations are the norm for your area, that is a good reason to not buy any further PLA products.
PTP Wireless is the best suggestion so far (used with a quality UPS, of course).

Yeah, that's a very good point: if you have any desire to keep your network operating during power outages, PLAs are pretty much a non-starter. As far as I've seen, there are none that don't draw their power from the same circuit they are using for data transfer, so you can't put a UPS underneath 'em.