Running Ethernet to my Steel Building

[BentBierz]

Hello,

Looking for some advice out there from the more computer literate. I'm not too shabby but this is a big enough project that I don't want to waste a bunch of time and money making mistakes.

I am pretty convinced I want to bury conduit between my house and the barn and run fiber optic cable. Most everything I have read about connecting separate buildings warns against difference in potentials, etc. between separately grounded buildings when running copper as well as the issue of lightning strikes...not an issue when running fiber.

I read where someone ran fiber between their two buildings keeping the run as short as possible and then transitioning to copper right after entering each building. From that point they had a run of Cat 6a to their internet switch. Before reading this I assumed I would have to run fiber all the way from my internet switch in the middle of the house, up into the attic, down the exterior wall, through the conduit to the next building etc. making sure that I had a sufficient number of pull boxes to make this happen.

I have attached a draft picture of what I hope to accomplish. The picture shows a much more direct route for the fiber optic than described above.

Adding to this I am thinking of having one or two PoE cameras on my building so trying to make sure I get it as right as possible from the start.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated including recommended equipment for this. Thanks.

 

[sberry]

How many electric wires run between the buildings and when was it built? Was it wired under a permit and inspection?

 

[PhysicsDude]

You should be able to achieve this wirelessly for a lot less effort and money.

A good wifi bridge should provide at least 100mbps of bandwidth. Keep in mind a 1080p video stream consumes 5-10mbps depending on frame rate, compression etc, a 4K steam consumes around 25-40 mbps.

Something like this would do the trick:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015YN8VJO/?tag=atomicindus08-20

 

[kspwski]

Yup, I'd be doing this wirelessly too. How far from house to barn? Ubiquiti AirMax stuff is where I'd end up as well. Look around for pricing, Amazon has been more expensive for Ubiquiti stuff for me.

 

[bowhuntr311]

Im not sure what your budget for this project is gonna be. But the complexities of using fiber related stuff is not gonna be cheap (compared to cat5 or cat6.)

Gonna need pre terminated fiber cables then your gonna need a switch with optical ports on each side along with the knowledge to setup the switches. It can certainly be done but it wont be cheap or easy. Depending on your data requirements you will be more than fine with wireless.

 

[b-boy]

Would it be cheaper to fix the separate ground issue and then run CAT6?

 

[theoldwizard1]

I am pretty convinced I want to bury conduit between my house and the barn and run fiber optic cable. Most everything I have read about connecting separate buildings warns against difference in potentials, etc. between separately grounded buildings when running copper ...

True statement, but CAT5/6 wired Ethernet has your back ! There is no "ground" connection between point A and point B. Gigabit Ethernet (1000Base-T) uses 4 twisted pairs to send differential signals.

 

[theoldwizard1]

Im not sure what your budget for this project is gonna be. But the complexities of using fiber related stuff is not gonna be cheap (compared to cat5 or cat6.)

Gonna need pre terminated fiber cables then your gonna need a switch with optical ports on each side along with the knowledge to setup the switches. It can certainly be done but it wont be cheap or easy. Depending on your data requirements you will be more than fine with wireless.

Concur with all of the above !

 

[Moto]

How far away is the barn? If it is a ways, then fiber may be best.

I would run the fiber inside the buildings to where it is convenient to switch to copper. There isn't a reason to keep the fiber as short as possible.

 

[ard]

Running fiber is an utter waste of money, IMO.

I don't know where you are finding "all the issues around lighting and grounding", but there are hundreds of millions of building connected with copper.

Unless you are building a hardened data center, with protections in each building and every device, why worry about the single line in the ground? Everything else in each building a vulnerable to a strike,etc.

If you have a trencher or backhoe on site, trench, conduit, cat6. Otherwise wireless. But in less you are moving data back and forth at gigabit speeds, no need for fiber.

 

[CoogarXR]

I have my current garage, and every other garage I have owned connected with cat5/6 cable with no issues.

 

[danb35]

I'm about to build a detached shop building, and planning on a fiber connection back to the house. Of course, that link will be running at 10G.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

Would it be cheaper to fix the separate ground issue and then run CAT6?

There is nothing to fix about the grounding unless of course the detached structure doesnt have grounding electrodes properly bonded to the panel. Its the nature of the beast as they say.

The issue on this subject isnt grounding but instead the possibility for lightning strikes to travel on any and all electrical and conductive pathways between buildings.

I have seen fried network equipment on both ends of a detached building feed due to surges and lightning strikes. Both buildings had properly installed grounding electrode systems.

One way to mitigate this is with ethernet surge/lightning arrestors.

If the run is less than 300', just go with underground rated CAT6. If lightning is an issue in your area, then use properly bonded ethernet surge arrestors on both ends.

BTW dont waste your money on CAT6a. CAT6a is for 10gig. CAT6 will suit you just fine.

Though i agree with the others on the wireless P2P bridge. Less work. If you need gigabit(doubt it) you will however have to spend big money for gigabit throughput capable radios.

UBNT is my go to brand and i install quite a bit of it every week.

If youre just doing browsing surfing and music streaming, a pair of Nano stations M5 radios would do the the trick.

If you go the fiber route, you would need preterminated fiber or someone with the equipment to terminate it.

True statement, but CAT5/6 wired Ethernet has your back ! There is no "ground" connection between point A and point B. Gigabit Ethernet (1000Base-T) uses 4 twisted pairs to send differential signals.

The issue isnt a ground connection.

The issue is a pathway for lightninf between building and any metalic pathway provides this.

Running fiber is an utter waste of money, IMO.

I don't know where you are finding "all the issues around lighting and grounding", but there are hundreds of millions of building connected with copper.

Unless you are building a hardened data center, with protections in each building and every device, why worry about the single line in the ground? Everything else in each building a vulnerable to a strike,etc.

If you have a trencher or backhoe on site, trench, conduit, cat6. Otherwise wireless. But in less you are moving data back and forth at gigabit speeds, no need for fiber.

I have seen the issue and destruction first hand.

It is real.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

I'm about to build a detached shop building, and planning on a fiber connection back to the house. Of course, that link will be running at 10G.

Why 10gig?

What is it youre running?

 

[sberry]

It isn't really a ground issue as much as a neutral issue, you do not want some wire to have an alternate pathway for currents.
A lot of this might not be such an issue with external modems, it was a real problem for phone lines and in to computers that have grounded chassis. Lightening is somewhat the same, if the phone suppression and ground was faulty the strike terminated in the modem within the computers.

 

[danb35]

Why 10gig?

What is it youre running?

I have a couple of servers that will be going out in the shop (in a relatively clean room), to get the noise and heat out of the house. 10G is overkill, but limiting the connection to 1G shared among the client devices in the house would probably be a bit much.

 

[m123]

You could certainly do what you are proposing to do, running fiber between buildings. It sounds like you are paranoid about grounding and lightning issues, and if so this is the right thing to do. It is just the most expensive option. You need specialized equipment to terminate the fiber ends after its run to plug into a switch that has a fiber port (which is also more expensive). You could theoretically purchase a fiber "jumper" that has ends already terminated but you'll have to get the exact footage and find someone that sells one long enough. That would save you the fiber termination equipment (the cable would already have plugs on each end of the fiber). But good luck pulling a jumper through a conduit without damaging the ends. Might be possible if you are careful and the distance isn't too great.

The most recommended option is to use underground rated Cat5e or Cat 6. This is because it is much easier and cheaper to work with. The network switch equipment is cheaper and more readily available. If you want to terminate your own ends the crimpers and plugs are cheap and easy to use (see monoprice.com). Just keep in mind the maximum distance between switches is around 300'.

If you are still stuck on using fiber, but don't want to get fiber equipment, you could also purchase a device called a media converter. This device converts a standard Cat5 or 6 cable into a fiber connection. Again, more money or another device to fail and provide power to. But that would allow you to use standard Cat5 /6 equipment in each building but use fiber in between.

Recommendations for equipment brands is similar to a Ford/Chevy/Dodge argument. In my opinion they are all very similar as they all have to meet Ethernet standards. It is more about what you are comfortable working with installing/configuring. Find something you like and you'll be fine. Go to a Best Buy or any electronics store and then purchase an identical model online at a cheaper price.

You'll be fine with 1000Mbps (same as 1Gig) link speed for your switches. Your Xfinity cable switch is probably 1Gig, so just stick with all 1Gig switches in your network. Most are marketed as 10/100/1000 switches which means they support 10Meg, 100Meg, or 1000Meg (1Gig).

 

[danb35]

You could theoretically purchase a fiber "jumper" that has ends already terminated but you'll have to get the exact footage and find someone that sells one long enough. That would save you the fiber termination equipment (the cable would already have plugs on each end of the fiber). But good luck pulling a jumper through a conduit without damaging the ends.

Pre-terminated cables aren't hard to find, and those that are rated for outdoor use are even available. They aren't cheap, but they're available in any length you want up to 5000' (which would probably be longer than OP's system would drive it). This vendor will also put pulling eyes/baskets on the ends to protect the terminations. For a two-strand, 100' indoor/outdoor cable with LC/LC termination, and pulling eyes on both ends, they get $127.

 

[DieselSJ]

I'm about 270' from house to shop. I'm doing the wireless option.

 

[biggziff]

Network powerline adapter. Simple and many have a gigabit port as well as an AP on the service side of the connection. It's what I use myself and for clients. About $100

 

[wyliesdiesels]

Have to make sure both outlets that adapters are plugged into are on same ungrounded conductor.

 

[biggziff]

Have to make sure both outlets that adapters are plugged into are on same ungrounded conductor.

Nope. I've experimented and now just plug them in wherever is convenient. I've got over 400 mbps wired in my new garage with the adapter in my home. Separate circuits, different distribution panels.

 

[75gmck25]

I agree that the extra expense of fiber cable, media converters and other equipment will make it quite a bit more expensive than using Cat 6. Fiber is worth it for some commercial applications, but overkill for home use.

However, to understand the requirements better, I'd like to hear more about what you do with these "servers" that you are moving to the garage. Are they just for your own local storage (home media server, etc.), or are they actually used in a business application? For example, if you plan to frequently move significant amounts of data over the links (e.g., back up 2-3 TB data drives, run a transactional system on the server with clients in the house, etc.), I would take the time to run a cat 6 line.

Video cameras, video streaming and other home applications are usually quite forgiving of bandwidth saturation and dropout, since the degradation happens slowly. However, business applications that require a high speed connection between servers, or between a server and client will work much better with wired connections.

Bruce

 

[OH_Varmntr]

For up to 100mbps, go to amazon and search for EZ Bridge Lite. That’s how I have WiFi in my shop 200’ away.

It’s $200, true plug and play, and has been flawless so far. More details with pics of my setup in my shop build link below.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[wyliesdiesels]

Nope. I've experimented and now just plug them in wherever is convenient. I've got over 400 mbps wired in my new garage with the adapter in my home. Separate circuits, different distribution panels.

Reread what i said.

I DID NOT say same circuit or same panel.

I said same ungrounded conductor. Theres only 2 on a single phase residential service.

 

[larry4406]

wyliesdiesels - in post 13 you stated "If the run is less than 300', just go with underground rated CAT6. If lightning is an issue in your area, then use properly bonded ethernet surge arrestors on both ends."

Can you show how this is done and an example device you would recommend for the bonded ethernet surge arrestors? I have a similar detached structure in the making and this portion of the build is coming. I am not an IT guy but do build housings for a living. My detached garage will have 4-wire feeder to its subpanel with separated neutral and ground bars and it does have a UFER.

I have also been following several of the other similar threads, including the one linked below, and was pretty much set on the Ubiquiti approach due to my excellent line of site but I am now more confused on which way to go.
https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=370862

 

[penusai]

I have a couple of servers that will be going out in the shop (in a relatively clean room), to get the noise and heat out of the house. 10G is overkill, but limiting the connection to 1G shared among the client devices in the house would probably be a bit much.

Servers have 10gig NICs?
Switches have 10gig Ethernet ports/Fiber Ports?

There's no point in limiting the connection, as the client devices, i'm guessing are 1gig.

Unless you plan on having 10 devices pulling 1gig of data at the same time, all the time.

If money is not an issue, I would run the Cat6a/Fiber for the 10gig support if you choose to upgrade to a full 10gig network.

$200-$300 for 1,000ft direct burial Cat6a.

 

[danb35]

Servers have 10gig NICs?

Yep.

Switches have 10gig Ethernet ports/Fiber Ports?

Yes, they do.

Unless you plan on having 10 devices pulling 1gig of data at the same time, all the time.

...or 10 devices wanting more than 100Mbps at the same time, any significant amount of time. Or two devices wanting more than 500 Mbps at the same time. Or...

If money is not an issue, I would run the Cat6a/Fiber for the 10gig support if you choose to upgrade to a full 10gig network.

Money's always an issue, but a wired connection is non-negotiable for me. And given that, and the fact that I already have the 10G infrastructure (well, I'd need a second 10G switch--I only have one), I'm thinking the cost delta to run copper vs. fiber is going to be pretty small--the bulk of the cost is going to be in labor.

But that's me, and I'm not the OP.

 

[biggziff]

I manage a 75000 node enterprise network and we almost *never* see anything near saturation levels on 1g links. 10g for home is like using a Ferrari to collect groceries 1 mile away.

 

[Denwood]

I am running 10G at both home/office. It does have advantages particularly for video editing as well as workstation imaging. We also have multiple users hitting a fairly large accounting database...10G links for that application are much faster. For most people otherwise 10G is hard to justify.

10G at the business is running over Cat5e now for 2-3 yrs, although max distance is about 100ft. I’m not recommending this, just reporting that it works. Google “Confessions of a 10Gbe Newbie.” .. it’s a six part series I wrote on the topic. Once you have the network in place, you’ll find the bigger issue is getting 900MB/s from it with multiuser loads

 

[Falcon67]

I have whole buildings full of students and faculty running over 1G links and 1G - some places still 100m - the the desktop without issues. That includes voice, video, etc. We also do real time live video for production and streaming over 2.4g wireless. 10G/fiber around the house IMHO is "because I can afford the expensive parts". We have 1G runs over old, old Cat 5 in many buildings. A economical 1G network with a couple of decent dual band APs will do everything you need including 4K. I have 12 wifi and 6 hardwire clients on the home network with 49m down and 4m up and no problems including running 8~10 hrs of VPN traffic for remote working plus streaming Netflix, etc at the same time. Just looking, current latency to the internet is a whopping 14 msec.

The point is don't overthink it.

 

[bowhuntr311]

Nope. I've experimented and now just plug them in wherever is convenient. I've got over 400 mbps wired in my new garage with the adapter in my home. Separate circuits, different distribution panels.

What brand are you running? Ive test comtrend, readynet and 1 other I dont remeber the name.

 

[biggziff]

What brand are you running? Ive test comtrend, readynet and 1 other I dont remeber the name.

The last few I used TPLink. Very reliable.

 

[mooseracing]

Been trying different solutions for about 7yrs in my barn now that is ~100 ft from the house - long story short they all **** except for a wired connection.

Have tried many wireless solutions, none are consistent over time. Same for powerline adapters. Once you load them up they start falling on their face because of their protocol for re-transmitting during errors - separate from normal TCP/IP protocols.

I'm upgrading power so I threw in another 2" conduit and pulling gel filled Cat5E. I'm not sure if they have gel filled CAT6A or how it would affect the shielding in it. Personally if I needed the bandwidth, pre terminated fiber with pulling eyes premade is pretty cost affordable. Then throw in a standard switch that just has a couple fiber link ports and some transceivers, is not too bad either. CAT in 10Gb draws alot of juice.

 

[hangfirew8]

OP never gave the distance of the proposed fiber run, so any cost analysis vs Fiber is pointless. Ethernet is good for 100M runs, as long as you have a Switch and not a Hub at either end.

Upcoming standards for 2.5 and 5Gb/S over Cat5e and Cat6 should be considered before going 10G. You can run the cable now and upgrade the switches later.

Another option for speed is running multiple cables and using them in parallel. You can either split traffic, or gang them using EtherChannel. Strongly recommend getting same brand of switch on either end of ganged Ethernet cables, and strongly avoid Dell quasi-Enterprise switches, that advertise what they cannot do.

STP (Shielded Twisted pair) uses the ground of the switch, if you ground a switch somewhere you're really covered. I advise checking for potential and be careful of ground loops before grounding in more than one place.

 

[Tmart86]

Running fiber is an utter waste of money, IMO.

I don't know where you are finding "all the issues around lighting and grounding", but there are hundreds of millions of building connected with copper.

Unless you are building a hardened data center, with protections in each building and every device, why worry about the single line in the ground? Everything else in each building a vulnerable to a strike,etc.

If you have a trencher or backhoe on site, trench, conduit, cat6. Otherwise wireless. But in less you are moving data back and forth at gigabit speeds, no need for fiber.

Ive worked on several jobs that cat5/6 connecting buildings had to be replaced due to lightning strikes. '300 run of fiber can be done for around $250-300 using simple fiber converters. but either way if you are less than 300' go with cat6A in a conduit and put good surge protectors at the entry point to each building.

If you are over 300' total cable length or dont want to conduit/cable wireless is great as long as you will never have anything in your path or have enough height to shoot over any obstructions IE a camper/trailer that only gets parked in that spot some times.

over 300' and bad line of sight time for fiber

 

[seanc_mt]

I have never seen this board suggest to someone using something inferior when they can and want to use the best. Back in the day 10 m/bit was crazy and NO ONE ever thought you would need that much. I do IT for a living for small to large enterprises. Bury some 1" PVC and run Cat6E through it 10 g/bit will get you through the next 5-10 years at least. WiFi will NEVER have the same performance as a wired connection.

 

[biggziff]

I have never seen this board suggest to someone using something inferior when they can and want to use the best. Back in the day 10 m/bit was crazy and NO ONE ever thought you would need that much. I do IT for a living for small to large enterprises. Bury some 1" PVC and run Cat6E through it 10 g/bit will get you through the next 5-10 years at least. WiFi will NEVER have the same performance as a wired connection.

10gbps has already been achieved with X wifi and mumimo. That was over a year ago. The newer wave stuff will have 5X that performance. This is like the megapixel race when digital cameras first came out. Marketing types convinced people they needed more and people spent money trying to achieve that. The vast majority of homeowners, businesses, etc. have much lower requirements than they think they do.

 

[Falcon67]

Megapixles mean something directly to picture quality. You can use it right off, see it, print it.
Not really comparable to advances in lab speed Wifi. I put in two AC capable APs in the house because it was time to replace the old dual band. Of the 12 devices connected (as noted) exactly zero are AC type clients. Advances in wifi mean zip until the client population catches up. Same deal when we moved to dual band APs and the clients were all 2.4. Always complaining about no throughput when 30 clients were on an AP in a classroom. Sorry, nothing to do about it until we get better clients with 5g. Now almost everything supports 5G and no more complaints. That only took 5 years or so. The AC standard was released in 2013. Still not a lot of clients.

 

[ard]

Bury some 1" PVC and run Cat6E through it 10 g/bit will get you through the next 5-10 years at least. .

Make that direct burial rated Cat6E. The conduit will be filled with water, eventually.