Is 140m (460 feet) ethernet over powerline for surveillance camera doable?

Hi Gurus! I need your help once again,

My father wants a camera in a birdhouse approximately 140 m (460 feet) from his house. I don't think PoE (48v) will work over this distance, as even the data lines are only rated at 100m max (330 feet). Plus an ethernet cable wouldn't last long above ground outside. He will not burry the cable. Maybe it would be doable to find some other cable to run it inside, like a water hose or something.

I'm therefore thinking to run HomePlug adaptors over a normal extension cord. It will be one continuous cable of 2x1mm^2 or 2x1,5mm^2 (no ground) stranded pure copper, which is respectively 5 times and 7 times thicker than 24AWG ethernet cable, plus we have 230v here. The voltage drop is not an issue in this configuration, as far as I understand, but is there enough head room for the data connection in those cables? I've heard solid copper cables are better for this, but they are hard to come by in outdoor cables, at least from my research. (Again, running it inside a rubber hose line is a possibility, though I'd like to avoid it as it bumps up the cost)

I need to have a stream of 720p H.264 30fps (maybe only 25fps) video, which according to the online calculators I've tried is equal to 60Mbit/s speeds, though I think a bit of headroom would be nice.

If you have another bright idea I'm all ears. I'd like to hear if this is even a possibility?

Thanks in advance / Zumps

Camera specs says 2Mbit/s. I'm confused.

Edit: Found out my phrasing of certain things was abysmal. I apologize to confused respondents.

I can´t really help you on the ethernet side, but regarding cables.
You want cables that are designed to be buried (They should be called "direct earth cable" iirc). Otherwise you will have corrosion issues fairly quickly.

For the ethernet part:

Power wise, conntact these guys:
http://www.directwireusa.com/

running over the power line is probably illegal. also at that distance you might have degradation issues with the signal. you may be able to set up wifi repeaters to boost the range of your network and connect wirelessly. wont help with the power but will help with he signal. also cameras specs are right. lab settings you only need 614k but real world 1-2mb.

Thanks for the suggestions CrossCarbon, however, my father does not want to burry the cable, he wants to run it over ground, in high grass. Corrosion and UV light degradation is only an ever more present problem in that scenario, which is another reason why going ethernet over powerline is a more tempting thing, as there are numerous powerline cables designed for that thing.

Huh, I've never heard of this, the adaptors are sold all over the place here in Denmark. Yeah I know there is probably going to be degradation of the data signal over that distance, but I don't know how that works exactly. If it is rated for 100Mbit/s, and the degradation makes it, let's say, 20Mbit/s, it's more than enough if it only needs to pull a 2Mbit/s stream. Also, thank you for that figure, I was getting a bit nervous the 60Mbit/s was the real deal, that would hamper the project a lot.

I may be completely out the ballpark here, but by powerline I think he means HomePlug technology. Powerline != PoE.

So your question is basically: is power over ethernet possible over 140m?

Ohh, Y'all though I'd run 230v wall power in an ethernet cable? What I intended to do is something like these guys.

@Some_Tech_Noob yeah if PoE is possible, that is a possibility, but I can also run a normal power cable. I just don't know which option is most viable.

Y'all? Denmark? What?
He thought you meant over physical cables that supply power to your house. Like taping them to the power line. Not using your house copper to run a signal. And 140m is pretty damn far. For one the signal out of the socket isn't going to be great and then running it that far is a stretch. Plus where does one even go about getting that much cable.
Also why don't you think you'll have a voltage drop? I'm not fimliar with the type of voltages that run thur these types of things but it can't be very high. And if you are sending constant voltage with a constant resistance well you're going to get a lot of current.
But you don't know till you try it.

Yeah, as I'm not a native speaker, I'm homeless in English. I take it as an opportunity to borrow whatever I like ;-)

Ohh, yeah that would be illegal.

Agreed.

I know the bandwidth is not expected to be that of an ethernet cable, but I don't need much bandwidth. The problem would be if it sometimes dropped out entirely.

Not a problem.

Are we talking PoE or house copper here? PoE is a lower voltage in a thinner wire, so overall power drop is likely an issue. Wall power is 230V in a 5-7 times thicker wire, so power loss is negligible, we're talking a camera pulling 10-15W max, that's 0,043A at 230V. Or have I gravely misunderstood something? The question with PoE is, will both power and data run 140m when it's only spec'd to 100m, and the issue with power line is not power, it'll be there, but will the data be degraded too much. There is no spec on this, because it depends on a lot of factors, many of which is not an issue when you run it in a straight cable: no needless sockets, no old cable, no fusebox etc. Noise on the grid could be an issue, maybe a surge protector could help dampen it.

Correct. Just though someone here maybe had some experience with something similar :)

You could try something like this

http://www.veracityglobal.com/products/ethernet-and-poe-devices/outreach-max-xt.aspx

It's the first thing I found while googling so not saying it's any good. But some kind of PoE powered Ethernet extender would probably be the easiest way of doing it.

Whoah, how does that work? I'm amazed. No power going to them to boost the signal, what kind of sorcery is this? Unfortunately they are out of my budget by a mile :(

Thanks for the suggestion though.

I thought we were talking about running wire outside a house so no 230v. Plus if you did you would need to step that down on the other end which requires hardware, and I dont think you want that type of hardware outside. Im also guessing the voltage over a either net cable/ coaxial cable is around 5v maybe 7v or 12v. Idk but that seems like a working voltage for most things. 140m is a very long way to go with 5v-12v. Thats why cat cable is only rated for 100m. voltage breaks down after that.

It's powered by PoE, I don't know what that one costs I'm just saying, something like that. You should be able to find something cheaper.

@AngryNun Yeah, I don't think PoE would work over that distance either, hence I think an extension cord is the way to go...maybe haha..

It's magic to me. Yeah they do have some cheaper models, for indoor use though. Maybe another brand has something at a lower price.

It has nothing to do with what the cable it runs over. It has to do with signal strength. The operating voltage of data over a cat cable is too low to go further than 100m. So you need to boost it. That means you need to boost the signal and then step it down. However I don't know what cat cable is rated at current wise. My guess is that it's most likely easier to run a copper cable of some type rather than a cat cable. PoE works by using the two free cables in cat cable. So I'm not sure what that working voltage is or how far it works. So maybe yes you can use PoE.

Edit.
Ok so PoE is limited to the same distance as cat cable. Which means it's cable limited. So bigger cable is needed. Which also means you need step up and down boosters.
Extension cords might work tho. You would need to look up the distances tho.

I've done this, and nobody is able to give an answer, because unlike PoE, the Cat cable and how it's wired and configured, there is no way of knowing these variables when it comes to normal power wiring, it may vary greatly from country to country, and from house to house.

Edit: To my advantage I'm in control of all these variables, because I'm configuring this end-to-end. However, I still have no idea how much this'll give me in the end.

Well the thing is these wall worts need power to work. They change the voltage in the wire and the other end says hey there are voltage changes and changes them into back into eithernet voltages. So any voltage will work so long as there is voltage. Now running live wires Thur an extension cord that far gives me shivers. But I'm sure it will work if you have enough working voltage. I'm not sure how sensitive the worts are and if it will decent the difference over that distance. Bc you will end up with smaller voltage changes on the other end.
Idk try it. These things aren't too expensive.

I have bought the camera now, and ordered the powerline adaptors. I made a deal with an electrician I know, so I can test it on at least a 100m wire, maybe even pair two wires so I get the full distance. If it works it must work in the actual application.

I will update if successful. I'll probably make a new post with the work log and results.

1 Like

Looking through my old posts I realized I never updated this one.

It is possible. The speed degrated to around 200mbit/s (best case scenario was 1gigabit/s) which is more than enough. The cable is comprised of two pieces (100m and 40m) spliced and soldered together. I connected a camera and an LED infrared spotlight, and the other end of the ethernet over powerline adaptor of course. Total wattage is around 15W. Only caveat is that the adaptors seem to fail once a month or so, the fix is just unplugging and replugging the whole thing and seconds later it all works again.

For such an application, I think another good idea is to use a separate power cable and run Ethernet through fiber using a pair of media converters, which are pretty cheap these days. You get stable power and stable Gigabit Ethernet that way, plus it may be cheaper.

I understand you don’t want to run POE (power over Ethernet) because there will be no ethernet cable. Instead you are thinking of Ethernet over powerline. Theoretically, it should work. The theoretical speed of a PowerLine adapter is in the Gigabit range, and theoretically, there should be no distance problem. However, PowerLine to the birds might figuratively be for the birds. I experimented with the adapters in the past, and they landed in the bin. Noise on the powerline kills the best intentions. Others echo that experience. You might be lucky. Why don’t you run a test, with the “home” adapter in the same outlet as the long extension cord. Alternative 1: If you are happy with snaking a long orange cord through the grass, then why don’t you do the same with an out-door rated cable, such as the one recommended by @CrossCarbon? If it’s direct burial, then you definitely can run it over the ground also. I like the waterhose idea to keep the squirrels away. Also, why not WiFi? Two directional antennas would do the trick.