4 ms·

> Single Pair Ethernet supports long range >1km cable runs That's going to introduce a lot of people to the joys of outdoor long wires and their interaction wi

> Single Pair Ethernet supports long range >1km cable runs That's going to introduce a lot of people to the joys of outdoor long wires and their interaction with lighting. I've seen the induction current from ground surge turn 25 pair cat3 into vapor ... there's fun to be had there.

FfejL 3y ago
Lighting? Or lightning? I'm hoping the latter!
- lostlogin 3y ago
  Surely lightning. I’m in New Zealand and our sun just destroys everything. The UV eats everything up and I’d not expose a cable to sunlight. Plenty of places are hotter or have more UV but also have air pollution which blocks UV. Our relatively clear air lets the UV come ripping through. At least sunlight won’t toast my switch though.
  - sgt 3y ago
    Is this why NZ streets, roads, towns generally look a bit "tired"? Hard to explain what I mean, but if UV light fades all the colors and makes things look neglected, it would be one explanation.
    - lostlogin 3y ago
      New concrete or even clean concrete is actually hard to be near and squinting is the norm. The difference just so striking when I go to Europe - it's like soft focus has been applied.
mschuster91 3y ago
Or with wildlife. Moles, mice, rats, rabbits, if your cable is not shielded with solid metal it will get eaten through. Other common issue with novices running outdoor cabling are people running belowground cables strung outdoors on poles in the open air - UV degradation can take such cables (or rather, their insulation) apart in a matter of less than a year. Or silicone cables that end up in stagnant water, which can dissolve them (don't ask me about specifics, but it's a hotbed of issues in PV power plants). Or people not burying their cables deep enough, i.e. below the frost line, and the ground freezing over killing the cables. Outdoor wiring is fun for everyone involved. If anyone here wants to deal with that crap, please read up on using the correct cable for the job, and FFS have a certified electrician sign off on the grounding of such cables and surge arrestor designs and installation.
- LinuxBender 3y ago
  For me it was yellow bellied marmots. They got into the ceiling. Now everything is in thick conduits. I learned my lesson for cutting corners ... and having to clean up all their little gifts.
- peterleiser 3y ago
  I worried about all of these things before installing 8 outdoor security cameras using PoE. The system is in a rural area with lots of critters and 100+ degree summers. I used direct burial & outdoor cabling but left it above ground and in some cases strung from pole to pole. It's been 3 years and the only issue was 2 cameras shorted at the "waterproof" Ethernet jack connector on the camera. This was not mission critical so I just "went for it" and it worked out. It was a great payoff since it only took 2 days to mount all the cameras and lay the cables. It would have taken much longer to dig trenches and put the cables in buried pipes. I treated it like a prototype and figured I would improve later based on actual problems that came up. I did make sure all of the boxes with wire connections, power supplies, and PoE switches were in waterproof boxes and I used silicone sealer where cables entered the boxes. I opened up one box yesterday and not even a cobweb!
  - mmastrac 3y ago
    > 2 cameras shorted at the "waterproof" Ethernet jack connector on the camera. Let me guess: unifi. I love em but I have two dead cameras because I assumed outdoor meant outdoor.
  - tomek_ycomb 3y ago
    Silicone Dialectric grease has helped me on ebikes for improving water proofing of any connector. Not sure if they interact with data lines, but I suspect not since it's dialectric. Curious, they may be a simple help in outdoor projects
organsnyder 3y ago
When I was a kid my family owned the (dumpy) neighboring house and used it for my dad's office. I ran cat5 between them, and it worked fairly well—except for one time when four ports (including the one feeding that line) of one of the switches blew out after a lightning strike. For my own outbuilding office (above our detached garage), I ran fiber to avoid this issue.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
  I lost the ports on some indoor devices when a neighbor's house was struck by lightning. The damaged ports were all running off a PoE switch I had spare to use but didn't need the PoE feature. A PC connected to a non-PoE port of the same switch was completely fine. PoE subverts the normal galvanic isolation of UTP Ethernet so beware of using it on important hardware.
- Aqua_Geek 3y ago
  What kind of fiber? Did you run it in conduit? If so, what kind? I’m about to start construction on my own outbuilding office and want to not screw this up.
  - eqvinox 3y ago
    You want outdoor-rated (longitudinally waterproof) single-mode fiber, with steel or kevlar braid. If it costs about 50…80ct/m (not including termination cost), you're in the right ballpark. It's possible to go cheaper, but then you need to know what you're doing, which by your question you don't ;-) If someone is trying to sell you multi-mode fiber, they're 20 years behind the curve. (No, the transceivers are no longer notably cheaper.) If someone is trying to sell you unarmored fiber, they want another sale after rodents chewed up your first fiber ;D For waterproofing, note there's lateral and longitudinal waterproofing. You want longitudinal, otherwise the fiber can pull water like a hose straight into your patchpanel. (It's rare but it happens.) Cheapest source I know is fs.com, for an outbuilding office order something that comes with connectors preattached (and add a good amount of slack). Splicing on connectors by any reasonable professional calls up mind-boggling hourly rates.
ilyt 3y ago
Yeah at that distance I'd just say fuck it and pay extra for fiber. I guess ability to power via same cable is an advantage here vs having to still have separate wire (or say local solar+battery for sensor).
- selectodude 3y ago
  Fiber isn't really all that much extra anymore. Duplex single-mode fiber is like 1/3rd the cost per meter as Cat6a. It's more expensive at the margins (optics, switches) but if you want to go 10gb, it ends up being a wash. And fiber will get you up to 400G+ if you ever want it without new cables.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    The biggest cost saving in fiber is in the lightning strike case. Assuming the power lines are properly grounded and surge arrestors appropriately installed, at least a strike won't fry your expensive switch or even more of your infrastructure.
  - zamadatix 3y ago
    At ~$80 for 2x 20km 1000BASE-BX BiDi transceiver and 2x media converters it honestly comes down to the cost of the cabling even for just 1 gig, and for that you just need a single strand of fiber so the cabling can be even cheaper.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- imhoguy 3y ago
  And this rabbit hole thread has brought me to Power-over-Fiber solutions.
  - mikewarot 3y ago
    I thought you were kidding.... and then I saw a Wikipedia page for it.[1] It's not going to be much power, that's for sure. You might be able to get a commercial system that delivers 1 watt at 24 volts. [2] Given the optical power required, and the sensitivity of the human retina, I'd say this is a bad idea in all but the most demanding circumstances. If you've got to send power with extreme electrical isolation(i.e. lightning strike proof), consider something like compressed nitrogen powering a very small turbine, or a rotating fiberglass shaft between motor and generator. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-over-fiber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-over-fiber [2] https://www.fiberopticlink.com/product/fiber-optic-isolation-systems/power-solutions-for-fiber-optic-isolation-systems/power-over-fiber-system-pof/ https://www.fiberopticlink.com/product/fiber-optic-isolation...

FfejL 3y ago

Lighting? Or lightning? I'm hoping the latter!

lostlogin 3y ago
Surely lightning. I’m in New Zealand and our sun just destroys everything. The UV eats everything up and I’d not expose a cable to sunlight. Plenty of places are hotter or have more UV but also have air pollution which blocks UV. Our relatively clear air lets the UV come ripping through. At least sunlight won’t toast my switch though.
- sgt 3y ago
  Is this why NZ streets, roads, towns generally look a bit "tired"? Hard to explain what I mean, but if UV light fades all the colors and makes things look neglected, it would be one explanation.
  - lostlogin 3y ago
    New concrete or even clean concrete is actually hard to be near and squinting is the norm. The difference just so striking when I go to Europe - it's like soft focus has been applied.

mschuster91 3y ago

Or with wildlife. Moles, mice, rats, rabbits, if your cable is not shielded with solid metal it will get eaten through. Other common issue with novices running outdoor cabling are people running belowground cables strung outdoors on poles in the open air - UV degradation can take such cables (or rather, their insulation) apart in a matter of less than a year. Or silicone cables that end up in stagnant water, which can dissolve them (don't ask me about specifics, but it's a hotbed of issues in PV power plants). Or people not burying their cables deep enough, i.e. below the frost line, and the ground freezing over killing the cables. Outdoor wiring is fun for everyone involved. If anyone here wants to deal with that crap, please read up on using the correct cable for the job, and FFS have a certified electrician sign off on the grounding of such cables and surge arrestor designs and installation.

LinuxBender 3y ago
For me it was yellow bellied marmots. They got into the ceiling. Now everything is in thick conduits. I learned my lesson for cutting corners ... and having to clean up all their little gifts.
peterleiser 3y ago
I worried about all of these things before installing 8 outdoor security cameras using PoE. The system is in a rural area with lots of critters and 100+ degree summers. I used direct burial & outdoor cabling but left it above ground and in some cases strung from pole to pole. It's been 3 years and the only issue was 2 cameras shorted at the "waterproof" Ethernet jack connector on the camera. This was not mission critical so I just "went for it" and it worked out. It was a great payoff since it only took 2 days to mount all the cameras and lay the cables. It would have taken much longer to dig trenches and put the cables in buried pipes. I treated it like a prototype and figured I would improve later based on actual problems that came up. I did make sure all of the boxes with wire connections, power supplies, and PoE switches were in waterproof boxes and I used silicone sealer where cables entered the boxes. I opened up one box yesterday and not even a cobweb!
- mmastrac 3y ago
  > 2 cameras shorted at the "waterproof" Ethernet jack connector on the camera. Let me guess: unifi. I love em but I have two dead cameras because I assumed outdoor meant outdoor.
- tomek_ycomb 3y ago
  Silicone Dialectric grease has helped me on ebikes for improving water proofing of any connector. Not sure if they interact with data lines, but I suspect not since it's dialectric. Curious, they may be a simple help in outdoor projects

organsnyder 3y ago

When I was a kid my family owned the (dumpy) neighboring house and used it for my dad's office. I ran cat5 between them, and it worked fairly well—except for one time when four ports (including the one feeding that line) of one of the switches blew out after a lightning strike. For my own outbuilding office (above our detached garage), I ran fiber to avoid this issue.

kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
I lost the ports on some indoor devices when a neighbor's house was struck by lightning. The damaged ports were all running off a PoE switch I had spare to use but didn't need the PoE feature. A PC connected to a non-PoE port of the same switch was completely fine. PoE subverts the normal galvanic isolation of UTP Ethernet so beware of using it on important hardware.
Aqua_Geek 3y ago
What kind of fiber? Did you run it in conduit? If so, what kind? I’m about to start construction on my own outbuilding office and want to not screw this up.
- eqvinox 3y ago
  You want outdoor-rated (longitudinally waterproof) single-mode fiber, with steel or kevlar braid. If it costs about 50…80ct/m (not including termination cost), you're in the right ballpark. It's possible to go cheaper, but then you need to know what you're doing, which by your question you don't ;-) If someone is trying to sell you multi-mode fiber, they're 20 years behind the curve. (No, the transceivers are no longer notably cheaper.) If someone is trying to sell you unarmored fiber, they want another sale after rodents chewed up your first fiber ;D For waterproofing, note there's lateral and longitudinal waterproofing. You want longitudinal, otherwise the fiber can pull water like a hose straight into your patchpanel. (It's rare but it happens.) Cheapest source I know is fs.com, for an outbuilding office order something that comes with connectors preattached (and add a good amount of slack). Splicing on connectors by any reasonable professional calls up mind-boggling hourly rates.

ilyt 3y ago

Yeah at that distance I'd just say fuck it and pay extra for fiber. I guess ability to power via same cable is an advantage here vs having to still have separate wire (or say local solar+battery for sensor).

selectodude 3y ago
Fiber isn't really all that much extra anymore. Duplex single-mode fiber is like 1/3rd the cost per meter as Cat6a. It's more expensive at the margins (optics, switches) but if you want to go 10gb, it ends up being a wash. And fiber will get you up to 400G+ if you ever want it without new cables.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  The biggest cost saving in fiber is in the lightning strike case. Assuming the power lines are properly grounded and surge arrestors appropriately installed, at least a strike won't fry your expensive switch or even more of your infrastructure.
- zamadatix 3y ago
  At ~$80 for 2x 20km 1000BASE-BX BiDi transceiver and 2x media converters it honestly comes down to the cost of the cabling even for just 1 gig, and for that you just need a single strand of fiber so the cabling can be even cheaper.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
imhoguy 3y ago
And this rabbit hole thread has brought me to Power-over-Fiber solutions.
- mikewarot 3y ago
  I thought you were kidding.... and then I saw a Wikipedia page for it.[1] It's not going to be much power, that's for sure. You might be able to get a commercial system that delivers 1 watt at 24 volts. [2] Given the optical power required, and the sensitivity of the human retina, I'd say this is a bad idea in all but the most demanding circumstances. If you've got to send power with extreme electrical isolation(i.e. lightning strike proof), consider something like compressed nitrogen powering a very small turbine, or a rotating fiberglass shaft between motor and generator. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-over-fiber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-over-fiber [2] https://www.fiberopticlink.com/product/fiber-optic-isolation-systems/power-solutions-for-fiber-optic-isolation-systems/power-over-fiber-system-pof/ https://www.fiberopticlink.com/product/fiber-optic-isolation...