[SOLVED] Help with powerline adapters

[axlrose]

So I purchased three tplink powerline adapter kits as my house has no ethernet lines and I need to move my gaming pc off of the main router and upstairs a floor. We also purchased alexas and hue lights for the girls' bedrooms. I have had almost no luck getting them to work. In troubleshooting with tplink they told me they work well in a house with three or four circuit breakers. When I told them my house has forty two circuit breakers they told me the product wouldn't work in my house. Help me out?

 

[bill001g]

It really doesn't matter how many circuit breakers there are the traffic at most is going to cross over 2.

Most circuit breakers themselves do not cause a issue the problem many times is the distance the signal has to travel going all the way to the panel and back. There are certain brands of the new arc fault breakers they require in the newest houses that completely block the signal. It is only certain brands and even that is somewhat unclear since some work perfectly fine.

If you purchased 3 kits ie 6 units you are likely running these as 3 different networks. These will interfere with each other. You need to run them as a single network. You want 1 device by the router and all the remote devices connecting to that. Still you want to avoid more powerline units than you actually need they actually run as mesh system so the more you add exponentially cuts the speed.

You also want to use the newer av2 units. The older av200 and av500 units have much more problem with larger numbers of devices and also have more issues passing through circuit breaker panels.

 

[richpixel]

All houses would normally have more than ring main one for each floor. Powerline adapters do work across rings mains as mine do with no problems.
Does your consumer unit use RCD as these can cause them not to connect.to each other. It has also been suggest extension leads with surge protector cause the same issue.

 

[axlrose]

I do have one sender with three receivers set up. I tried to find a way to buy them without having to purchase three full kits, but they said they only sold them in kits, so I have two senders I'll never take out of the box. The kits are the TL-WPA7510 Kits, and they look to have AV2 1000Mbps. When I can get a signal on them, it's usually under 2Mbps. My service was up to 25Mbps, and I just in the last week or so upped my plan to up to 50Mbps thinking it would be worth it with the new echo dots and lights.

Richpixel, I'm not sure I got it all, but they are not plugged into extensions, but right into the wall outlet. I'm not sure what RCD is?

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[bill001g]

You should easily get 25mbps but some houses are a pain.

I would start with a single pair. I would get it working maybe in the same room just to see how good you can get. Then move that unit around the house and see what you can expect in each room.

After that add the extra units and see if adding the extra units is what is causing the drop or if it is just the house wiring

 

[axlrose]

Bill that seems reasonable. I don't think I have anything I can connect a hardline to without taking my pc down and moving it around the house to test the speeds though. I might have to figure out what I can do for that.

 

[axlrose]

If I could get 25, I'd be very happy.

 

[Jeremy Howard]

So I purchased three tplink powerline adapter kits as my house has no ethernet lines and I need to move my gaming pc off of the main router and upstairs a floor. We also purchased alexas and hue lights for the girls' bedrooms. I have had almost no luck getting them to work. In troubleshooting with tplink they told me they work well in a house with three or four circuit breakers. When I told them my house has forty two circuit breakers they told me the product wouldn't work in my house. Help me out?

I've honestly never had good success with power line adapters. In one home the wiring was old and couldn't get anything from it. The current home I was able to get a good connection from one but it really seemed that you need the adapters all on the same circuit as when I changed outlets it went back down. The solution I had was sending the signal from one room to another using the old direct tv coax cables that were ran. This worked out perfect and I got my full speed.

If you have regular cable lines for TV you can use a MoCo box or if you have Satellite you can use DeCa. I've been using this solution until I can get around to actually running cable to the rooms I need it in for hard wired.

 

[berenod]

If you have 42 breakers chances are your main supply is 3-phase. Look at this as three seperate power supplies coming from your energy supplier.

In that case, about a third of your house is wired to the breakers on phase 1, a third to the breakers on phase 2 and the last third to the breakers on phase 3.

Powerlines will only work properly on outlets which are connected to breakers which are on the same phase.
If your power outlet is connected to a breaker on another phase, there actually is no connection to the other outlet as another phase = another power supply! Hence no, or at best a very poor connection.

This is the most likely reason TP-link support told you chances of getting it to work properly are slim to none.

To find out which outlets in your house are connected to which breaker, and then to know on which phase that breaker sits requires some electrical plans of the house along with somebody (electrician) who can interpret them, or in case of abscence of said plans, an electrician who will need to do some detective work figuring it all out (time consuming but possible).

Then you could know between which outlets connections are possible!

 

[axlrose]

The house is kind of odd in that way. It's not real old. Early 2000's I think, but it has almost no coax, phone or ethernet in it at all. I think the master bedroom and one other room have coax, and it's a 4400+ square foot house. The master bedroom might also be the only room that had a phone line. No ethernet anywhere. When we moved in, I had to have a line put into the house from the street.

So I purchased three tplink powerline adapter kits as my house has no ethernet lines and I need to move my gaming pc off of the main router and upstairs a floor. We also purchased alexas and hue lights for the girls' bedrooms. I have had almost no luck getting them to work. In troubleshooting with tplink they told me they work well in a house with three or four circuit breakers. When I told them my house has forty two circuit breakers they told me the product wouldn't work in my house. Help me out?

I've honestly never had good success with power line adapters. In one home the wiring was old and couldn't get anything from it. The current home I was able to get a good connection from one but it really seemed that you need the adapters all on the same circuit as when I changed outlets it went back down. The solution I had was sending the signal from one room to another using the old direct tv coax cables that were ran. This worked out perfect and I got my full speed.

If you have regular cable lines for TV you can use a MoCo box or if you have Satellite you can use DeCa. I've been using this solution until I can get around to actually running cable to the rooms I need it in for hard wired.

 

[axlrose]

I don't see anything identifying to know which breakers are on which phase. Is there a way for me to figure this out without hiring an electrician? We've had bad luck with the last two we've hired.

Thanks for the idea. I'll do some more research on this as it's new to me.

If you have 42 breakers chances are your main supply is 3-phase. Look at this as three seperate power supplies coming from your energy supplier.

In that case, about a third of your house is wired to the breakers on phase 1, a third to the breakers on phase 2 and the last third to the breakers on phase 3.

Powerlines will only work properly on outlets which are connected to breakers which are on the same phase.
If your power outlet is connected to a breaker on another phase, there actually is no connection to the other outlet as another phase = another power supply! Hence no, or at best a very poor connection.

This is the most likely reason TP-link support told you chances of getting it to work properly are slim to none.

To find out which outlets in your house are connected to which breaker, and then to know on which phase that breaker sits requires some electrical plans of the house along with somebody (electrician) who can interpret them, or in case of abscence of said plans, an electrician who will need to do some detective work figuring it all out (time consuming but possible).

Then you could know between which outlets connections are possible!

 

[berenod]

I don't see anything identifying to know which breakers are on which phase. Is there a way for me to figure this out without hiring an electrician? We've had bad luck with the last two we've hired.

Thanks for the idea. I'll do some more research on this as it's new to me.

That's a bit of a hard one.
Don't know which country you are in and what type of breaker box you have.

Most of the time the breakers are distributed evenly, so the first one is phase 1, the second one phase 2, the third one phase 3, the fourth one phase 1 again and so on.

Only way to make 100% sure is to open up the breaker box, and honestly, not to be advised (even strongly against) if you are not an electrician!

Once you know which breakers sits on which phases it's rather easy (but a bit time consuming). You shut of all breakers for phases 2 and 3 so only the breakers on phase 1 are on.

Then you go check all the power outlets which still have power (small table lamp or so), so all of those sit on phase 1.

Then repeat with all the breakers for phase 1 and 3 off, only phase 2 on, and one more time with phases 1 and 2 off and only 3 on.