Powerline Adapters for Internet Access/TGC

[pkim813]

Anyone use one the powerline adapters, like TP Link or Netgear Powerline 1200, for "hardwiring" your PC for ST? Uses your home's electrical wiring to conduct the internet signal. It never delivers their stated speeds but can be pretty fast; CNET has the Netgear one at 386 Mbps at sustained speeds. They're $80 for a pair and saves having to get your modem ethernet cable out to your sim. Mine is in my basement which is finished which would be a slight pain to get out there. Just wondering if anyone's tried this option for PC/TGC since it seems somewhat finicky. thanks!

[Laboroflove]

I have a set of them in my house for my hard to reach office where there is no wifi signal. They work great and we're easy to set up.

[Jtangm04]

I have a powerline adapters. Connection speed heavily depends on how your electrical is wired. General gist is your powerline will have fast connections in rooms in the same column as your circuit breaker.

For instance for me my study, master bedroom, laundry, and second floor are on the left column of my circuit breaker so I get great connection speeds. My living room, basement and garage are on the right side of the circuit breaker which gives me about half the speed via powerlines.

Every home is different.

In my setup I installed Tcg on my desktop in my study since it is my gaming computer. I have a powerline from my study to my garage where my golf sim is using steam link. The steam link then outputs to my projector.

At first, I was getting horrible lag and stuttering from the steam link due to a slow connection from the powerline. Wireless was even worse. Again I thought I was SOL since study left side of breaker and garage right side of breaker. However the last electric plug I tried in the garage had super fast speeds and plays tcg perfectly. After thinking it over my laundry room is on the other side of that particular electrical outlet so guessing that on plug is on the laundry room breaker.

[pkim813]

thanks for input

[ironFrank]

I dont know how it is in your country. In Germany we do have - Neutral, Earthline and 3 carrier lines (L1, L2, L3).

Normally you are using N and L1 or N and L2 or N and L3 for electricity in the rooms. Good Electricians are changing them from room to room to have not so much power on only one line (l1.l2,l3) when you use several devices.

Why am I telling that?

You should make sure, that the room you start the power lan ist connected the same like the room where you recieve it. so N and L1 in the start room and N and L1 in the receiver room.

Otherwise you will have a low speed connection if at all. If you arent an electrician ask your specialist please!

Thats the thing for Germany. I dont know in other countries.

I am using it with a line of more than 200meters and it works fine.

So in the receiving room, I do have a WIFI router which is connected whith the Powerlan.

[aja]

In North America house wiring uses only one Live (carrier) wire for receptacles so that's not an issue (There is only an L1 unless it's stove wiring, for instance). But circuits are still grouped to not exceed the breaker's value for each circuit.

Just make sure that your clothes washer doesn't start withdrawing money from your internet bank!

[FloppyJoe]

I'll bring this thread back to life. My simulator is in a detached garage. I was having major connection problems with tgc. I tried a NetGear Extender which helped some, but still experienced drops. Just used the NetGear Powerline for the first time today. Six hours with no drops and no issues. Power of internet connection stayed at 65-80% which is well above the extender percentage.

[cmckelvmi]

I'll bring this thread back to life. My simulator is in a detached garage. I was having major connection problems with tgc. I tried a NetGear Extender which helped some, but still experienced drops. Just used the NetGear Powerline for the first time today. Six hours with no drops and no issues. Power of internet connection stayed at 65-80% which is well above the extender percentage.

Thank you for adding this input! I too have my set-up in a detached garage and have wondered how I can get WiFi out there.

[G4zzel]

I had the same issue but got it to work nice with 2 x TP Link AC750 wireless recievers/extenders. Put one in the socket in my house on the wall facing the garage, one in the socket in my garage on the wall facing my house. TP Link then scans and as long as it gets signal it will enhance the signal in around itself.
Works great for me. But i have really long distances so i lose about 50-60% speed. Its about 40meters between router and sim-computer.

[Stingreye]

If you are only using those wifi points to connect it, you can swap the antenna for a higher gain directional antenna and I bet it will work even better. I beemed WiFi from two attics with a line of site and a large directional antenna and it was shockingly good and it was half a mile between access points.

[G4zzel]

I get your point But then you need to mount it on the outside wall or do you mean an indoors antenna?

[Stingreye]

I mean any high gain antenna (indoor or outdoor) concealed in a cabinet so the wife is happy. Its been a while since I researched it (7 years) but when I set mine up, I used Yagi Antenns. It was concealed inside the attic at my house and my in laws condo that was a 0.5 miles away. They had crappy internet and I wanted to have good net when we visited. So both antenna's were concealed. Antenna are basically "dumb" for the most part. They just boost a signal.

So if you have a cabinet on the wall facing the garage you can point it to your garage and another from your garage to your house (the directional antenna).

To be honest, you already have a decent signal. I had no shot of beaming wifi the distance I was trying (I had zero signal one house away). You really don't need a directional antenna. If its working now, Iikely wouldn't mess with it, but I have also added some of these higher gain antenna's and had good luck in a warehouse that we needed to blanket just a little more area.

Something like this: (note these are omni directional so they booste the signal all directions)

https://www.amazon.com/Alfa-Booster-OMNI-Directional-High-Gain-Adapters/dp/B002MUU6L4/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1516637062&sr=8-5&keywords=high+gain+wifi+antenna

or if you want to put it in a better location from the access point, something like this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Omni-directional-Extender-Magnetic-Extension-Connector/dp/B073SWWMRG/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1516637062&sr=8-3&keywords=high+gain+wifi+antenna

[Dan McWhirter]

My NetGear 1200 works great and it has to pass through one box back to the main feed box and thence to another box, about 140 feet in all. I plugged a wifi extender (new wifi point) at the end so that everything in my garage is connected. I lose connection only when my dsl router ATT service screws up.

[JRachner]

Bought a netgear to use in my detached garage. Tested it last night just for basic connection and it worked great! Not bad for 200+ft away.