Anybody have experience with lightning/ESD/ground issues with outdoor ethernet equip?

[Diggin It]

200' is the length of the ethernet run I have now (which is about the max for power over ethernet -- POE). Then it shoots wireless another 100' or so to cover the area of interest.

Just looked at a TPLink wireless unit that claims 200 Meters (600') or more 'in field tests'. No idea on price.

EAP11-Outdoor | N3 Wireless N Outdoor Access Point | TP-Link

 

[thekkfan]

Used TP Link before, had issues with it and had to repeatedly reboot it periodically. Pain........

Ubiquiti on the other hand has served me well. From Edgerouter x at center of my network, to their Mesh AP (omni directional) https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-UAP-AC-M-US-Unifi-Access-Point/dp/B01N9FIELY/ref=asc_df_B01N9FIELY/?tag=&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309779531175&hvpos=1o11&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9846986927906688565&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9009639&hvtargid=pla-404914404842&ref=&adgrpid=62412137260&th=1

Have also used their Nanostations for point to point wireless. Line of sight or near line of sight capabilities are awesome. Cost depends on what you want to run... 2.4, 5g, etc.

These are easily capable to 500ft. Read reviews ..... https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Bun...+nanos,electronics,179&sr=1-4#customerReviews

Not an easy config, but not impossible if you know what you are doing.

I use a simple 2.4g Ubiquiti CPE on side of my house to blast wifi out to my workshop ~100ft with no additional on receiving end. The 2.4g units run around $45 each.

 

[s219]

may i ask who told you 200 feet is the max for POE? that is certainly not the case.

That is in the specs for the POE injector that came with the TPLink access point. I assume it's specific to their product.

 

[CobyRupert]

...There's a clear connection here to thunderstorms, and I never had any problems in previous years. So obviously running ethernet outdoors has opened me up to new problems. I wonder if my grounding setup is partly to blame.

The outdoor wireless router has accommodation for direct ground via ground rod or can tie into the ethernet system ground (requires ethernet cable with ground wire, which I do have) . As near as I can tell, the ethernet system ground would route to the ground prong in the power plug for the power-over-ethernet injector back inside the house.

I had been using the external ground on the outdoor router, tied to a nearby ground rod (used for the barn's electric service) thinking it would be better to ground the router close to the router rather than rely on ground over ethernet all the way back to the house. Now I am wondering if tying into that ground rod might instead be exposing the outdoor equipment to any lightning effects that propagate down into the ground. Maybe I would be better off grounding my replacement outdoor router through the ethernet cable?

I don't know anything about ESD and lightning strikes. None of the strikes were close by the router that I can see (ie, no obvious damage to trees, etc) but clearly just being outdoors seems to make the equipment vulnerable.

The outdoor router was mounted on a PVC pipe attached to the barn, about 6' above grade. The ethernet cable runs in 1.25" PVC conduit buried shallow. Really, the only direct "metallic" connection between the router and the outside world is the copper ground wire to the ground rod. So if the router is vulnerable to nearby (but not direct) lightning strikes, my dumb thinking is that somehow the earth ground must factor in somehow. Maybe it is causing more problems.

Would love to hear some input, ideas, expertise.

thanks,
219

So are there 2 "grounds" (earth) locations involved here?
Electricity would much rather travel on copper than through the ground to discharge to the "lesser charged" location. And not just during lightning strikes. But given that your only a couple 100 feet away it is probably during lightning strikes.

Is the router (case, etc..) also grounded through it's power cord and thus the house's ground?
Or perhaps the Ethernet signal is grounded at the house end (at the house ground rod) and at the barn end (at the barn's ground rod)?

At any given earth location we are all "birds on a wire". What I'm getting at is the actual ground at one location may have a voltage relative to another location some distance away. ESPECIALLY during a lightning strike, even one occurring some distance away. The ground is a poor conductor to conduct and equalize these charges. So if the "ground" at one location is several hundred, or thousand, volts higher than the ground at the other, and a copper cable brings these two locations just millimeters away, or one low voltage rated component apart, from each other (or are actually connected together) inside the router it may flash over or otherwise burn out.
I'd get rid of the external ground connection to ground rod at barn.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I hate wireless stuff, and have piles of underground service going everywhere, some even 100 pair! But I do try and go with HIGH Quality wireless stuff as I just got too tired of stuff being blown apart using wired connections.

My main Internet feed is actually on 500 feet of RG6 with Verocity media converters to Eithernet. It is just run through a forest, up steep grade on surface. I bought lightning protectors for the ends, but have not installed them and never had an issue, yet! Those media converters seem well designed. Yes, I have a lot of Polyphaser stuff in various places.

I have a broadband DISCONE antenna on the house, and if there is a storm even just approaching, you can see sparks jumping across the connector!

 

[kcflhrc]

The only thing predictable about lightning is that it's unpredictable. It will take the least resistant path to ground, that you can be sure of.

 

[k0ua]

At any given earth location we are all "birds on a wire". What I'm getting at is the actual ground at one location may have a voltage relative to another location some distance away. ESPECIALLY during a lightning strike, even one occurring some distance away. The ground is a poor conductor to conduct and equalize these charges. So if the "ground" at one location is several hundred, or thousand, volts higher than the ground at the other, and a copper cable brings these two locations just millimeters away, or one low voltage rated component apart, from each other (or are actually connected together) inside the router it may flash over or otherwise burn out.

Our 4 legged bovine friends, when just innocently standing on the damp earth can have a nearby strike to ground cause a potential voltage rise that can be hundreds of volts different at different hooves. NOT GOOD fro bossy. This is why you see them scattered around the tree after the fact and they are now electrocuted beef and no longer living animals.

This can happen to us two footers, too, but is especially bad in cattle as they are further apart. This is why the electric companies will tell you if you are ever in a downed live wire situation to shuffle your feet and take tiny mincing steps until you are well away from the wire as there can be differences in potential even between our little "hooves". No one ever told a cow about the danger.

 

[k0ua]

The only thing predictable about lightning is that it's unpredictable. It will take the least resistant path to ground, that you can be sure of.

Actually it takes ALL paths, BUT the greatest current flow will be with the least resistant path. Just like if there was a million resistors in parallel , there would be current in ALL of them but if some of them were high resistance and some were low resistance the ones with the lower resistance would carry more current. (more electron flow in a give time. )

 

[Industrial Toys]

Compared to the ground, and common building materials, copper wiring is highly desireable to lightning.

 

[s219]

So are there 2 "grounds" (earth) locations involved here?
Electricity would much rather travel on copper than through the ground to discharge to the "lesser charged" location. And not just during lightning strikes. But given that your only a couple 100 feet away it is probably during lightning strikes.

Is the router (case, etc..) also grounded through it's power cord and thus the house's ground?
Or perhaps the Ethernet signal is grounded at the house end (at the house ground rod) and at the barn end (at the barn's ground rod)?

At any given earth location we are all "birds on a wire". What I'm getting at is the actual ground at one location may have a voltage relative to another location some distance away. ESPECIALLY during a lightning strike, even one occurring some distance away. The ground is a poor conductor to conduct and equalize these charges. So if the "ground" at one location is several hundred, or thousand, volts higher than the ground at the other, and a copper cable brings these two locations just millimeters away, or one low voltage rated component apart, from each other (or are actually connected together) inside the router it may flash over or otherwise burn out.
I'd get rid of the external ground connection to ground rod at barn.

Yeah, if I repeat this same setup, even if just temporarily, I am planning to disconnect from the ground rod at the barn and ground through the ethernet cable. That would ground the outdoor access point to the same ground location (110V AC outlet inside the house) as the rest of the network equipment.

 

[Tractor Seabee]

I used to engineer these kind of systems all day everyday. In my opinion You need protection, and the only kind of protection fast enough to really keep transients from destroying sensitive electronics is protectors with fast avalanche diodes. Gas discharge tubes can help shunt large currents but fire too slowly to prevent puncture of delicate pn junctions in electronics. Again in my opinion, the brand most used by commercial users is Transtector/Polyphaser. These products are not cheap per unit price but in my experience they are very effective. I used to specify them anytime they were justified. This protector includes a hybrid technology of the fast avalanche diodes and the power handling of gas discharge. Also experience has taught us to make sure that there is at least 20 foot of cable between the protector and the equipment. This propagation delay in the copper allows the clamping effect time to occur.

https://www.amazon.com/Smiths-Power...ge+suppressor&qid=1566759376&s=gateway&sr=8-4

All of that said, anytime you can do away with outside wires the better off you will be. Wireless is the way to go if you can make it happen.

KOua, in my younger day when I was a facility manager for a military, base we had a lot of security and communication systems that were ethernet of several types. I had my own technicians to maintain the systems so naturally I got pretty involved especially new installs and upgrades. All cable was braid shielded. One of the basic precepts from factory manuals and techs was to ground the braid only at the main frame and avoid connections to other grounds including the cabinets that were grounded per electrical code. The connection points for the ethernet were isolated from the cabinet. Contractor on new installs invariably paid not attention so we had to go through every cabinet and disconnect the grounds to the cabinet. Factory techs explained that there are always transients and noise on the AC power circuits. I always combed the specs for new project for this and insisted the designers add that language. Enforcement of government construction sucks.

What is your take on that?

 

[k0ua]

KOua, in my younger day when I was a facility manager for a military, base we had a lot of security and communication systems that were ethernet of several types. I had my own technicians to maintain the systems so naturally I got pretty involved especially new installs and upgrades. All cable was braid shielded. One of the basic precepts from factory manuals and techs was to ground the braid only at the main frame and avoid connections to other grounds including the cabinets that were grounded per electrical code. The connection points for the ethernet were isolated from the cabinet. Contractor on new installs invariably paid not attention so we had to go through every cabinet and disconnect the grounds to the cabinet. Factory techs explained that there are always transients and noise on the AC power circuits. I always combed the specs for new project for this and insisted the designers add that language. Enforcement of government construction sucks.

What is your take on that?

The current thinking is for an SPG. Single Point Ground. Everything is to be grounded to a single point. Everything. No grounds running thru anything else, no grounding "at each end" etc. Towers, Radios, surge protector grounds. All to one place. Everything is supposed rise at the same rate and potential. The idea is to keep current from flowing from place to place.

As we all know, though no matter what you do, And actual direct strike is gonna get ya. It is the thousands of "nearby" strikes that we can avoid with proper grounding bonding and protection with fast devices. Earth currents can flow for a long distance to equalize a strike, so "nearby" doesn't have to be all that near. most people think of lightning as an aerial phenomena, but what happens in the earth beneath our feet is just as important. Anytime you put a copper wire in the ground, you are ASKING for trouble. Anytime you run a copper wire outside the protective shell of a building, you are asking for trouble. AND depending on where you live, and how many strikes "nearby" you get each year, and even the soil conductivity trouble will find you.

Think about a professional installation like a cell phone tower and equipment hut. Do they have lots of sensitive equipment? Yep. Do they have a big fat tower sticking up in the air? Yep. Do they turn off and unplug that equipment? Nope. But they do single point ground the he77 out of everything. Including running wire around the inside of the hut ceiling, and floor, all racks every coax etc All feeds from the outside world, etc. They spend thousands of dollars on Lightning protection and bonding and grounding. Do they still lose stuff? Occasionally, but they have learned to avoid much disaster by these techniques.

 

[ten300]

+1 for pulling fiber through there. Get cheap 4 port or whatever you need switches that have an available SFP port to put on each end and then get the appropriate fiber sfp from fs.com for $10 along with preterminated fiber from them. We never do any outbuilding with copper anymore, just cheap preterminated fiber in conduit and call it a day. Amazing what you can do now for the price compared to 10 years ago no homeowner could have afforded that