Is it possible to daisy chain Powerline network adapters?

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I have a pair of TP-Link powerlines. They work well, but we're wanting to get a connection at the end of a long garden. The connection is a little too far, since the router is at the front of the house.

Could we use two pairs of adapters, one next to the router paired to one at the back of the house, then a second pair, one connected via Ethernet cable to the other, and one at the cabin at the end of the garden?

Powerline 1 ~~~~~~~~~~ Powerline 2 ------ Powerline 3 ~~~~~~~~~~ Powerline 4

Powerlines 1 and 2 are paired, and powerlines 3 and 4 would be paired.

Powerlines 2 and 3 would be connected by an Ethernet cable.

user2924019

Posted 2015-07-20T10:49:56.120

Reputation: 242

Just to add, I managed to get away with just a single pair of power line adapters. Ethernet speeds are still around 60MB/s spanning a distance of 50 meters. – user2924019 – 2017-02-01T09:32:26.973

Answers

3

This will work, I've done something like that before.
When both sets operate as 2 separate LAN's it will work as desired.

But you might get interference if all 4 powerline adapters are trying to work together as a 4 device LAN. (The long-distance signal is too weak to work properly together, but not weak enough to split them in 2 independent islands.)

I my case I solved this by using 2 sets of Powerline adapters from different brands, so they were not able to make the "wrong" connection.

Tonny

Posted 2015-07-20T10:49:56.120

Reputation: 19 919

1Thanks. You manually have to pair them by holding a button, so I guess as long as I pair them separately they should be fine. Especially as other brands also use the same protocols so shouldn't need to have separate brands. – user2924019 – 2015-07-20T11:16:23.953

1@user2924019 If there is one thing that I have learned about Powerline is that proper adherence to standards is non-existent. The protocols might be officially the same but compatibility is usually problematic between vendors. Even 2 devices (same model, but different batches) from the same manufacturer may have issues between them. And sometimes it works when it shouldn't. Even if you can pair them in 2 groups, that is no guarantee they won't interfere with each other. You will have to experiment. – Tonny – 2015-07-20T11:23:41.420

I do happen to have 4 TP-Links, 2 Netgears and 4 Devolo Adapters. I'll give these a go and see what happens. – user2924019 – 2015-07-20T11:29:44.710

@user2924019 In that case you should be able to find several working combinations :-) – Tonny – 2015-07-20T11:43:44.027

No Need to take different brands, just make sure that you have two Networks with different Network keys (so probably don't use them in the Default config where all Adapters share the same Default Password). Keep in mind that still the electrical line is a shared medium and that all Networks together sum up to the Maximum PHY rate (e.g. 500 Mbps), so that forwarding will only allow half of the Maximum bandwidth. – Werner Henze – 2015-11-05T15:17:48.057