Networking via your electrical wiring-circuits?

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Re :Networking via your electrical wiring
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Does power line networking work across different phases? Usually a household has 2 phase service to allow for 240 V service for electric clothes driers, ovens and water heaters. Does power line networking work if the power line adapters are on different phases?

Most home electrical distribution boxes alternate phases from one to the next circuit breaker or compact circuit breaker pair. If the power line adapters are on different phases, there isn’t a common connection except through the utility transformer, which I doubt is designed to support the transfer of network high frequencies from one phase to another. In my older home where service was upgraded with new electrical panels there are rooms with only one or two outlets on the same circuit.

How does this work when plugged into different phases? A quick internet search found several users where the cross phase communication did not work unless something was done to connect the two phases, such as an Ethernet “bridge” between the two.

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Usually a household has 2 phase service to allow for 240 V service for electric clothes driers, ovens and water heaters.

I should point out that some countries in the world already have a single-phase 220-240V electricity supply!

BATcher

Plethora means a lot to me.

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Ahh, I think you’re back in the 19th century. AC power is single phase to most non-commercial users. The drop has two hots and a neutral for 240V with one hot and neutral being used for common 120v circuits. There is no phase hoping, or whatever, between breakers.

The powerline adapters work fine.

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Ahh, I think you’re back in the 19th century. AC power is single phase to most non-commercial users. The drop has two hots and a neutral for 240V with one hot and neutral being used for common 120v circuits. There is no phase hoping, or whatever, between breakers.

So how does the signal get from one hot to the other?

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Through the distribution transformer. The two “hot” wires are the ends of a center tapped winding with the neutral connected to the center tap. So they are physically connected. The transformer core separates the center tapped secondary winding from the very high voltage primary winding. It’s the core that blocks power line signals from going back onto the primary distribution system. If your home is sharing a distribution transformer with other homes, your Ethernet signal will flow into those other homes. That’s the reason Ethernet power line adapters have encryption. On a positive note, your Ethernet signal will be available in a detached garage or shop if both your home and the garage are served by the same distribution transformer. Wireless intercoms and baby monitors work the same way.

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Through the distribution transformer. The two “hot” wires are the ends of a center tapped winding with the neutral connected to the center tap. So they are physically connected. The transformer core separates the center tapped secondary winding from the very high voltage primary winding. It’s the core that blocks power line signals from going back onto the primary distribution system. If your home is sharing a distribution transformer with other homes, your Ethernet signal will flow into those other homes. That’s the reason Ethernet power line adapters have encryption. On a positive note, your Ethernet signal will be available in a detached garage or shop if both your home and the garage are served by the same distribution transformer. Wireless intercoms and baby monitors work the same way.

Excellent explanation

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I thought since this thread was about Powerline networking with your house-wiring (I assume tied into Fred’s article in a recent newsletter) I wanted to post that it solved an immense problem for me.

My grandson lives with us and we’ve been trying for ages to get his X-box-360 working with our wireless network connections. It finally hit me that he lives in a part of the house that is surrounded by a couple of steel beams and that might be causing the in/out working of his connection.

So, I decided to have a cable run through the house to answer this problem, but when I saw Fred’s article I went to my local Best Buy store and picked up a Powerline attachment kit to try. It worked great, and, needless to say, I no longer have my grandson whining about this – I hear nary a sound from him now.

One thing that did happen, however, was that not all the wall plugs we tried allowed communication at the highest speeds. We finally left the connection between two plugs that seemed to be communicating at max.

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First, those of us who are radio operators hate this service because it is prone to interference, both ways! It creates severe receive noise and the signals in the line itself can be overpowered by nearby radio transmitters. Power line transmissions are stopped by transformers, which will not pass the RF, but does the AC. So these type of services cannot go beyond the transformer on the pole outside your house except with special bypasses installed, (these are prone to radio interference too!) Personally myself, I’d like nothing better than to see that service go bye-bye because of all of the trouble it causes for those of us who talk on the radio!

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