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Post by givusaclue on Jul 11, 2021 0:05:05 GMT 1
I’m looking for an extension lead for Ethernet cat something or other, 10m would suffice, something on a retractable reel To keep it tidy & easy to use with my scanners when I’m doing flash updates as it can be quicker & more reliable than WiFi.
seen some 50m ones for about £120, too long & too much money.
Where should I be looking for such a thing please?
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Post by rhyds on Jul 11, 2021 9:54:20 GMT 1
I can't say I've seen an extendable/retractable reel for cat5/5e/6, except for very expensive reels used on TV broadcast jobs or very short spring loaded ones for use on desks (which are awful) For our 10m cables we just buy them pre-terminated for about £5 and coil them up after use, something like this www.comms-express.com/products/cat5e-rj45-ethernet-cable-patch-leads-booted/?10~Metre?OrangeOr any old ebay special will do, as you're not going to be running gigabit speeds I'm assuming. If you do go for one of the retractable reels on ebay or amazon, I'd suggest not going for the flat cable type ones if you can, as I'm not sure if you can reterminate it if the plug gets damaged. You can usually reterminate round cable. However, one thing you might want to consider is running a second wifi access point in to the workshop. A modern, decent quality 5GHz ac/x access point will give you more bandwidth than you get from your incoming internet connection and improve reliability.
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Post by Joepublic on Jul 11, 2021 14:00:04 GMT 1
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Post by givusaclue on Jul 11, 2021 23:08:46 GMT 1
I can't say I've seen an extendable/retractable reel for cat5/5e/6, except for very expensive reels used on TV broadcast jobs or very short spring loaded ones for use on desks (which are awful) For our 10m cables we just buy them pre-terminated for about £5 and coil them up after use, something like this www.comms-express.com/products/cat5e-rj45-ethernet-cable-patch-leads-booted/?10~Metre?OrangeOr any old ebay special will do, as you're not going to be running gigabit speeds I'm assuming. If you do go for one of the retractable reels on ebay or amazon, I'd suggest not going for the flat cable type ones if you can, as I'm not sure if you can reterminate it if the plug gets damaged. You can usually reterminate round cable. However, one thing you might want to consider is running a second wifi access point in to the workshop. A modern, decent quality 5GHz ac/x access point will give you more bandwidth than you get from your incoming internet connection and improve reliability. Do you mean something like another router fed via dsl?
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remmington
Apprentice
Owns Spark Eroder
Posts: 4,971
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Post by remmington on Jul 12, 2021 7:17:00 GMT 1
I can't say I've seen an extendable/retractable reel for cat5/5e/6, except for very expensive reels used on TV broadcast jobs or very short spring loaded ones for use on desks (which are awful) For our 10m cables we just buy them pre-terminated for about £5 and coil them up after use, something like this www.comms-express.com/products/cat5e-rj45-ethernet-cable-patch-leads-booted/?10~Metre?OrangeOr any old ebay special will do, as you're not going to be running gigabit speeds I'm assuming. If you do go for one of the retractable reels on ebay or amazon, I'd suggest not going for the flat cable type ones if you can, as I'm not sure if you can reterminate it if the plug gets damaged. You can usually reterminate round cable. However, one thing you might want to consider is running a second wifi access point in to the workshop. A modern, decent quality 5GHz ac/x access point will give you more bandwidth than you get from your incoming internet connection and improve reliability. Do you mean something like another router fed via dsl? "running a second wifi access point in to the workshop. A modern, decent quality 5GHz ac/x access point will give you more bandwidth than you get from your incoming internet connection"Prey explain rhyds..? I too am interested in this - and to be honest me and givusaclue are only dumb mechanics
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Post by rhyds on Jul 12, 2021 9:52:55 GMT 1
What I see a lot of in workshops is that the router is tucked away in the office (because that's where the phone socket is) so wifi coverage in the workshop proper tends to suffer due to the office walls affecting the signal. What a second access point does is let you set up another wifi transmitter that's connected back to the original router (so not a second internet connection) but is located closer to the job, which helps reduce dropouts, especially if you're trying to get a signal out of a solidly built blockwork or steel framed office. There's three basic ways of doing this: 1) Wireless repeaters/range extenders These work by picking up the wifi signal from the router and then rebroadcasting it. The upside is they're the easiest to set up (just need power), the downside is that you have to place the repeater somewhere that gets decent wifi signal from the original router but can still provide a decent signal for the intended coverage area (e.g. outside the office window), which is a bit tricky to find. We tend to avoid these at work as they aren't reliable enough for a commercial IT install, however we have used them for buildings where there's no wifi/network cabling at all to provide limited service (we blast wifi out of the nearest window to the building in question). They also need mains power where they're located. This is basically how those "home wifi booster" kits from BT/Virgin work, but I don't think they offer them for business services. 2) Wired in access point (AP) This is what we do at work. You run a cat5 cable from your current router to a convenient point in the workshop and then install the access point, which is effectively like your router but without the parts needed to connect directly to the phone line or internet. The access point will need power, so you can either plug them directly in to the mains or some will allow you to use power over ethernet, where you plug a power supply in by your router and power the AP using the same cable as you use to connect it to the router. You can also, if needed, use a network switch to split that one cable to multiple ports, so you can still use your long patch cables for critical jobs. APs themselves are available in a load of prices from £30 cheapies to £100+ centrally managed units. For a quick job like this I'd use a basic AP from TP link, as they come with a basic Power Over Ethernet setup so you only need to run the network cable to your installation location. They can be a bit fiddly but for the price they're fine www.ebay.co.uk/itm/402890027439?epid=13032164327&hash=item5dce1df1af:g:0-0AAOSwpSBgrLtJ3) Powerline networking This is my preferred solution at home, but I'm not sure how it translates to a workshop environment. In short, powerline networking uses your electrical wiring to carry network traffic from your router to a wifi access point. One adaptor plugs in to a mains socket next to your router and is connected to it with a network cable and the access point is then plugged in where you need it, as the network traffic traverses the power wiring to get there. Its more reliable than the wifi repeater setups but not as good as the wired setup, however it takes much less installation work. What worries me is that powerline networking doesn't work well with electrical systems with lots of "dirty power" attached (big motors/welders etc) and I'm pretty sure both ends of the link would need to be on the same phase. The cost is about £30, and a kit like this would give you basic service Powerline Wifi KitYou can then set the access point up to either broadcast the same wifi network name and password as your main router (so your devices try and auto-connect to the strongest signal) or, as I prefer, you set up a new wifi name like "WorkshopWifi" so you can manually select which network you use. The main problem however is that I am only able to give generalised advice, so you may want to look in to getting someone local to have a quick nose at your premises sometime. I'd offer, but the service calls from Wales to most of you would be a bit far!
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Post by Joepublic on Jul 12, 2021 10:57:12 GMT 1
You should have a YouTube channel Rhyds.
Being a commercial building it wouldn’t hurt to run a clean power circuit from a dedicated MCB for clean wifi? It’s the way life is going so once installed it would be an advantage?
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Post by rhyds on Jul 12, 2021 11:46:14 GMT 1
You should have a YouTube channel Rhyds. Being a commercial building it wouldn’t hurt to run a clean power circuit from a dedicated MCB for clean wifi? It’s the way life is going so once installed it would be an advantage? Nah, there's plenty of good youtube tutorials out there Regarding network power requirements the main thing to have is a good surge protector for your router/network switch and if you depend on it for phones or "mission critical" stuff I'd consider getting a small UPS/battery backup for it. As for the powerline network stuff, that depends on using your existing wiring, and if you're going to spend money on wiring you're better off just running dedicated network cabling anyway.
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Post by givusaclue on Jul 13, 2021 13:05:08 GMT 1
You should have a YouTube channel Rhyds. Being a commercial building it wouldn’t hurt to run a clean power circuit from a dedicated MCB for clean wifi? It’s the way life is going so once installed it would be an advantage? i already run a powerline type kit just that the cars are not always very close to a socket, hence a reel, i can sort that i think with a bit of recycling. however i do have 3 more bays next door where the wifi has no chance to reach, i also have a spare dsl router that i bought in error a tp link something, so if i connect that up hopefully it should act as a second access point broadly speaking?
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Post by givusaclue on Jul 13, 2021 13:12:55 GMT 1
Do you mean something like another router fed via dsl? "running a second wifi access point in to the workshop. A modern, decent quality 5GHz ac/x access point will give you more bandwidth than you get from your incoming internet connection"Prey explain rhyds..? I too am interested in this - and to be honest me and givusaclue are only dumb mechanics i'll have you know i may resemble that remark
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Post by Joepublic on Jul 13, 2021 13:44:24 GMT 1
You should have a YouTube channel Rhyds. Being a commercial building it wouldn’t hurt to run a clean power circuit from a dedicated MCB for clean wifi? It’s the way life is going so once installed it would be an advantage? i already run a powerline type kit just that the cars are not always very close to a socket, hence a reel, i can sort that i think with a bit of recycling. however i do have 3 more bays next door where the wifi has no chance to reach, i also have a spare dsl router that i bought in error a tp link something, so if i connect that up hopefully it should act as a second access point broadly speaking? I just thought a dedicated powerline running to the ramps across the ceiling, then Tee above the ramps to a socket placed between each ramp would allow the wifi extender to be moved around so even if the next ramp was raised with the car body blocking the signal you could simply move the extender to another socket in direct line of sight? Cables are a nuisance / trip hazard?
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remmington
Apprentice
Owns Spark Eroder
Posts: 4,971
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Post by remmington on Jul 13, 2021 17:40:30 GMT 1
"running a second wifi access point in to the workshop. A modern, decent quality 5GHz ac/x access point will give you more bandwidth than you get from your incoming internet connection"Prey explain rhyds..? I too am interested in this - and to be honest me and givusaclue are only dumb mechanics i'll have you know i may resemble that remark "resemble" = "resent" - a better word!
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Post by rhyds on Jul 14, 2021 10:42:00 GMT 1
You should have a YouTube channel Rhyds. Being a commercial building it wouldn’t hurt to run a clean power circuit from a dedicated MCB for clean wifi? It’s the way life is going so once installed it would be an advantage? i already run a powerline type kit just that the cars are not always very close to a socket, hence a reel, i can sort that i think with a bit of recycling. however i do have 3 more bays next door where the wifi has no chance to reach, i also have a spare dsl router that i bought in error a tp link something, so if i connect that up hopefully it should act as a second access point broadly speaking? In short what you're suggesting (using a second router as an access point) is possible, but you have to set the router up correctly to do it, otherwise you have problems. The issue is that the way a router works is there's two "sides" to it, the "in" side where all your kit sits, and the "out" side where your internet connection connects to. Your internet connection will have one IP address given to it by your ISP, that's the one the internet sees and comes up on this site and others, while the router itself uses a system called DHCP to hand out addresses on the in side of the network to your phones/PCs and the like and tells the devices to use that router to get to the internet. The problems start if you have two Routers on the same network and both are trying to hand out IP addresses at the same time. What can happen is that the second router (that's not connected to the internet) hands out addresses and tells devices to connect to the internet through it despite not having a connection available, which causes issues. If you want to give this idea a go drop me a PM with the router make, model and hardware revision (this should be on a label under the router) for both your current router (the one actually connected to the internet) and the one you want to use as a second access point and I can look up how to turn off all the "router" parts of the device and make it just an access point.
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Post by rhyds on Jul 14, 2021 10:47:05 GMT 1
i already run a powerline type kit just that the cars are not always very close to a socket, hence a reel, i can sort that i think with a bit of recycling. however i do have 3 more bays next door where the wifi has no chance to reach, i also have a spare dsl router that i bought in error a tp link something, so if i connect that up hopefully it should act as a second access point broadly speaking? I just thought a dedicated powerline running to the ramps across the ceiling, then Tee above the ramps to a socket placed between each ramp would allow the wifi extender to be moved around so even if the next ramp was raised with the car body blocking the signal you could simply move the extender to another socket in direct line of sight? Cables are a nuisance / trip hazard? Looking at this from the tech side I'd run a network cable rather than 240v power and use Power Over Ethernet to do the access point. Its cheaper than twin and earth and shouldn't cause issues with any electrical certification. If you needed power at the same place as the access point you could run a spur from the workshop itself. Powerline networking only really makes sense if you're not wanting to run cables, if you're running cables then Cat5 is easier and cheaper and isn't difficult to terminate.
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Post by Noberator on Jul 14, 2021 11:34:27 GMT 1
i'll have you know i may resemble that remark = "resent" - a better word! I think giveusaclue was referring to being similar to your wording of being dumb mechanics. resemble = To be like something or someone. resent = Is an insult or dislike.
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