Powerline adapters: is there such a thing...

[Watchman]

Scenario: I run a Citrix client off a Raspberry Pi for work. Works brilliantly usually but for two issues:

1. If there's the slightest WiFi blip, the Citrix client closes. This seems to happen three or four times a day. I'm getting a 3/4 signal strength and everything else "outside" of the Citrix client carries on happily, so I just take it that WiFi is normal but the Citrix client is not tolerant of blips. To try and combat this, I am now using a mains networking "powerline" adapter instead of WiFi and that has been utterly stable, except for the second issue below

2. We have power fluctuations where I live, which are frequent enough to be annoying, and led to corruption with the Raspberry Pi SD-card (now booting from an SSD), so I bought a small UPS to deal with that, and another for the router


This sounds perfect except (of course) the powerline adapter has to be plugged into "normal" mains and not the UPS (or it wouldn't tx/rx). So, when the power bombs out, I lose network again, and the Citrix client bombs out too.

What I would like it a mains networking device that uses a different power supply, so that I can power it from the UPS while it remains connected to the non-UPS mains supply.


Any suggestions please?

[TallTom]

Are you over engineering this? Take the Powerline adapters out the equation

Surely you could run a cat '5e/6/6a' cable up to 90-100m / where the powerline plug would terminate and then reduce any reliance on the them/non UPS connected power.

In the event of a power blip, UPS keeps router steady and no outage as thats the thing transferring the data + the laptop/pc?

[CubanPete]

Given the size of the RPi, can't you just velcro it to the back of the router and hardwire it?

[Countdown]

Watchman said:

Any suggestions please?

Would a double-plug socket not work?

[Watchman]

TallTom said:

Are you over engineering this? Take the Powerline adapters out the equation

Surely you could run a cat '5e/6/6a' cable up to 90-100m / where the powerline plug would terminate and then reduce any reliance on the them/non UPS connected power.

In the event of a power blip, UPS keeps router steady and no outage as thats the thing transferring the data + the laptop/pc?

Router is also UPS protected.

My house would be tricky to run ethernet between the room I work in and the router but maybe not as difficult as the solution I'm trying to engineer. Perhaps you're right and I should look into spending my time on that.

Thanks for the sanity check.

[Watchman]

CubanPete said:

Given the size of the RPi, can't you just velcro it to the back of the router and hardwire it?

The router is at the other end of the house from my workstation.

[Watchman]

Countdown said:

Watchman said:

Any suggestions please?

Would a double-plug socket not work?

I'm not sure where you're suggesting it should go. If it were plugged into the mains, when the mains supply fails, it will kill power to the power line adapter.

If I plug the power line adapter into the UPS, it will not pass networking traffic back to the mains cabling.

[xeny]

Watchman said:

Any suggestions please?

Chop a powerline adapter open, and run in a (at a guess 5V) low voltage feed for the electronics (run from your UPS) that replaces the feed from the built in power supply?

I'm wondering how bad the wifi glitches are, and if an external Wifi bridge with a better antenna than the Pi has space for might be a better option?

[Watchman]

xeny said:

Chop a powerline adapter open, and run in a (at a guess 5V) low voltage feed for the electronics (run from your UPS) that replaces the feed from the built in power supply?

I'm wondering how bad the wifi glitches are, and if an external Wifi bridge with a better antenna than the Pi has space for might be a better option?

I have considered it. The TP-Link ones I have do not have any screws so I would indeed have to chop one open. I'm not against that but there's actually an open source board (website in dollars only) that provides for this. It's expensive though but does appear to use "standard protocols" so may actually connect to those I already have.

But, the post above has prompted me to look into running ethernet cables. I kind of never really fancied doing it but my loft is already boarded and the exterior walls are plasterboarded on the inside so running cables through from the loft might not be too troublesome, now that I think about it. I'll get some long plastic oval (thin on one side) conduit, and try ramming that down inside the walls. It worked in a previous house (where I was more motivated to flood the house with ethernet wiring).

I even have a couple of electrical circuits in the loft, so I could stick a switch up there.

Thanks for sanity checks.