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Author Topic: Shielding mains cable  (Read 18625 times)

burakkucat

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Re: Shielding mains cable
« Reply #30 on: August 08, 2015, 07:04:52 PM »

As you say, they're substantial, heavy units, better suited to industrial use than domestic.

I was just having an idle thought about how many ex-BT Mains Conditioners could be loaded into the bomb-bay of a Vulcan bomber and the damage they would create if dropped onto the average post-WWII battleship . . .  :-\

Quote
I bought mine because I have a recurring issue with spikes on my upstream SNRM and I wanted to test if these were the result of mains spikes. I live in a rural area with rather dodgy mains supplies. I used it to supply power to my modem/router and network switch, and it made not a jot of difference. It's now packed away in a cupboard.

Ah, yes. You have mentioned your location in the past and I have taken in a Google street-view tour to look at the location one of the fibre cabinets.
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NewtronStar

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Re: Shielding mains cable
« Reply #31 on: August 08, 2015, 07:08:34 PM »

You can even use a cheapo car battery jump starter pack which incorporates a 12V DC output socket and used this to power the HG612 close to 24 hours when testing if i had mains noise and the result was my mains was not the culprit.
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GigabitEthernet

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Re: Shielding mains cable
« Reply #32 on: August 08, 2015, 08:30:18 PM »

I don't currently have a 12V battery and unfortunately 9V is too little for the HG612 :(

I'll see what I can find tomorrow.
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les-70

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Re: Shielding mains cable
« Reply #33 on: August 09, 2015, 10:45:41 AM »

  As an example of a line where the BT conditioner makes a significant difference I attach my CRC over a few days with the conditioner.  If I remove the conditioner the CRC spikes are about 4-5 times bigger and likewise, rather than 1-2 SES/day with it, I get about 6-10 without it.  It is these CRC spikes that cause a number of modems to be unacceptable on my line.  The ZyXEL 8324 in particular often lost sync when they occurred, even when speed capped to match my usual HG612 and its usual speed.  An HG612 has been found best at coping with them.
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Weaver

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Re: Shielding mains cable
« Reply #34 on: August 09, 2015, 10:55:57 PM »

@les-70  could you remind me what sort of line you're on?
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Weaver

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Re: Shielding mains cable
« Reply #35 on: August 09, 2015, 11:02:30 PM »

Whilst I'm moving off topic for my own thread, which was about shielding, the mains-conditioner stuff is very welcome.

I'd be very grateful if people could do do some experiments. The Belkin PureAV, which has not been _scientifically_ tested by me, is available from loads of places, amazon.co.uk for example.

Earlier posts about battery chargers set me wondering...

Could I run some modems off a lead-acid battery (what sort), which is on constant maintenance trickle charge? Would that work?
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GigabitEthernet

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Re: Shielding mains cable
« Reply #36 on: August 09, 2015, 11:37:11 PM »

A UPS would do quite nicely and would be useful anyway would it not?
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Weaver

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Re: Shielding mains cable
« Reply #37 on: August 09, 2015, 11:52:32 PM »

@AlecR  -clarification  :- running modems off _DC_.
Running off a battery would mean zero harmonics and a very stiff PSU too. (Presumably a good thing?)

[btw the modems are already run (indirectly) off a UPS which synthesises AC mains. Because of paranoia about the alleged poor quality of UPS' synthesised AC output, there are multiple levels of mains filtering between UPS and modems.]
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GigabitEthernet

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Re: Shielding mains cable
« Reply #38 on: August 10, 2015, 12:00:32 AM »

Let me know what you find as I'm looking to do a similar thing.
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GigabitEthernet

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Re: Shielding mains cable
« Reply #39 on: August 10, 2015, 01:06:47 AM »

I think this would be suitable for a router and to charge it, this would seem appropriate :)
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burakkucat

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Re: Shielding mains cable
« Reply #40 on: August 10, 2015, 01:47:28 AM »

I think this would be suitable . . .

Weaver has three lines bonded, so three modems and one FireBrick router would need to be battery powered. As for trickle-charging, sheddyian might be able to advise about solar-powered charging of lead-acid batteries.
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les-70

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Re: Shielding mains cable
« Reply #41 on: August 10, 2015, 06:56:02 AM »

  Don't forget that nothing will make any difference unless you have the sort of noise that they mitigate.  A battery with no charging connection is a good test and if it makes no difference you can forget the fuss.

  For longer term use any charging circuit may introduce noise and UPS 's vary a lot in their degree of mains isolation.  I would guess that if the battery helps a BT conditioner might be next best -- just a guess based on its mode of mainly being an isolating transformer with a saturated core.

  @Weaver a 500m line from a small town centre located CAB.  The Victorian nature of the locality probably also does not help!

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sheddyian

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Re: Shielding mains cable
« Reply #42 on: August 11, 2015, 12:47:35 AM »


Weaver has three lines bonded, so three modems and one FireBrick router would need to be battery powered. As for trickle-charging, sheddyian might be able to advise about solar-powered charging of lead-acid batteries.

I had been meaning to chip in to this thread, but time was against me  :(

Previously (can someone find the thread?) I'd tried running my router off of a 12 volt drill battery, and compared the ADSL2+ results to running from mains.  I wasn't suffering from any known interference problems at the time.  I found there was no noticeable difference, even when isolating the router from ethernet and relying purely on wireless to check the stats.

Similarly, when I was suffering from REIN on my ADSL2+ connection, where the synch would drop and resynch much slower for hours at a time (and bit/tone allocation severely affected), running from an electrically isolated battery would not improve matters for me.

[This REIN interference is now, thankfully, gone, I still do not know where it came from though assumed it was an indirect neighbour with a noisy LCD second TV that was switched on a few times each week]

I am currently running a Raspberry Pi web server from two standard car batteries wired in parallel to give 12 volts but increased current/ length of service.

The batteries are charged from a 20 watt solar panel that I bought on ebay for about £30.  If you're going this route, over-estimate the input current to charge the battery.  It only needs a few overcast days for your supply to be on a knife edge.  I've yet to run my setup through a full winter without giving a sneaky top-up by connecting a mains charger to the batteries because I was anxious.

That said, running a router purely on battery power, and isolating it from ethernet cables (which could carry mains interference from switches or other devices) is probably the best you'll get for connection quality.  And in my experience, it made no difference from running everything off the mains.

Ian
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sheddyian

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Re: Shielding mains cable
« Reply #43 on: August 11, 2015, 01:17:08 AM »

A thread I've just found where I was trying out battery powered (and mains isolated) router setups on ADSL2+

http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,13111.msg254572.html#msg254572

Ian
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Weaver

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Re: Shielding mains cable
« Reply #44 on: August 11, 2015, 02:54:38 AM »

@sheddyian  -you're words of experience could very well end up saving me a lot of time faffing about to no purpose Sheddyian. Many thanks. :-)

It's amazing, no matter how nutty a plan I may come up with, it seems to me that there's a chance that some adventurous kitizen will have been there before me!
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