Gentle persons: There was a flurry of messages earlier that touched on running ethernet to barns and such using either cat-5 cable or wi-fi. Sorry I was in no position to respond at the time.
I was surprised no one mentioned powerline ethernet technology (or was I just not diligent enough in reading the traffic?). I don't have any useful remote floorspace for machine tools (sigh), but I do live in a 3-story townhouse with a difficult layout of walls and spaces. I've run cat-5 where it was convenient, to connect with desktops, servers, routers, etc., and set up wi-fi access points to connect with transitory laptops (mine, my wife's, and my adult children's). However, I'm also using powerline ethernet technology to bridge between several locations. I used first-generation Netgear adapters in the past and am using current-generation Linksys adapters now (I believe D-Link and possibly others are also in the game). I get more than acceptable throughput (e.g., faster than the cable modem that is my link to the outside world). I see no evidence of interference from cordless phones, microwave ovens, or other emitters in my house or the connected townhouses, nor have I seen evidence of trouble with my cockamamie branch circuit layout (I think all the journeyman electricians must have been on strike when the house was built in 1972. There's an inspector's scrawl in the service panel, so presumably the work was to NEC code, but good golly, Miss Molly). Your mileage may vary. I see two possible shortcomings in the powerline ethernet approach (1) the run to the remote site may be too long for the technology to perform at an acceptable speed. Use your favorite search engine to find the current vendors and dig through their sites for performance info. (2) this solution may turn out to be more expensive because these adapters aren't commodity products and there's not enough competition. Still, it's always possible you can find them on eBay, Craig's list, or even in your neighbor's junkbox (when I upgraded, I gave my first adapters to an enterprising teen-aged experimenter I know who's long on ideas and short on funds). I think anyone faced with expanding their ethernet empire should estimate total costs and benefits of the all available approaches before forging ahead. Regards, Kent ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
