Surge protection for ADSL

[Tacitus]

In all cases, I will try Clarity's little surge protector on the BT line, if they get it in stock. Will also try Maplin's surge protected adsl microfilter. (Remember this thread is about surge protection?)

I don't know if it's any help but Clarity can supply white Cat5e cable.  if you need to wire round the skirting board this can be useful.  AFAIK they are the only ones who supply it.

Regarding the surge protector it might be worth sending them an email to see when they might have some in stock.

[Polchraine]

Rather than extending the low voltage side, whay not make an extension lead for the mains voltage side?

Get some 0.75mm flex and make an extension lead (single socket) ensuring you fuse the plug at 1 Amp and mark it appropriately?    But only if your are confident/competent.

You also mention using 1.5mm - again what about buying an extension lead which will probably use the same diameter flex?

[armadillo]

What about wiring Figure 2, like this, no need to cut the LV cable and no worries about voltage drop?

Yes, I think that is probably what I will do. Polchraine also says much the same a few posts further down. My main reason for ruling it out when I was considering options was that I thought it might be illegal to terminate a mains cable with a 13 amp socket if it is not connected directly to the ring main. However, I am perfectly confident to do it.

It will also put the mains extension parallel to the LAN cable for the part of the route where the cables feed up through the ceiling. I can route apart once in the loft space.

Cat6 shielded is probably still overkill for the LAN cable though

[armadillo]

Thanks Polchraine,

My main reason for ruling it out when I was considering options was that I thought it might be illegal to terminate a mains cable with a 13 amp socket if it is not connected directly to the ring main. However, I am perfectly confident to do it. Now that you and Ted are both suggesting the same thing, I think I will do it. I obsessively label all my plugs and connectors anyway    .75mm flex (given that it will be carrying less than 1amp) is probably a better option than buying an extension lead too. A 3 core cable with 1.5mm conductors will be thick enough that I may have problems getting it through the holes between ceiling and roof space, which I would rather not make any bigger than they already are!

I am off to look at mains cable now. 3 core 5 amp mains cable should be perfect. At least that is relatively easy to find!

[armadillo]

Just spoke to Adslnation.

Thanks Ted. I am really grateful for that. Seems like they are using something that is not Cat5e but which they reckon is as good or better. I am not competent to judge whether that is good or not. But a projected 6 week stock lag might well become a 6 month stock lag, knowing how these estimates pan out!

I think I am going to go for extending the mains supply from the UPS instead.

I will still need a short Cat5e RJ11 to RJ11 though. Less of a problem and could easily use unshielded.

[armadillo]

I don't know if it's any help but Clarity can supply white Cat5e cable.  if you need to wire round the skirting board this can be useful.  AFAIK they are the only ones who supply it.

Thanks for that. It would be useful if I go round the skirting board. I think though that I am now going with the option of extending the HV from UPS to router.

Regarding the surge protector it might be worth sending them an email to see when they might have some in stock.

I did but just got an auto reply saying they will take a long time to reply to technical query emails. I did ask about exactly what the little adapter is. So perhaps I shall send another one asking strictly about stock and nothing else. I may get a quicker reply.

[Ted]

I think I am going to go for extending the mains supply from the UPS instead.

I really think that would be the best idea. Solves a lot of issues

I will still need a short Cat5e RJ11 to RJ11 though. Less of a problem and could easily use unshielded.

Adslnation do a 0.5m Pro+ RJ11 that would fit the bill perfectly. Please let us know how you get on.

[Polchraine]

Cable:   http://www.screwfix.com/prods/72642/Electrical-Supplies/Cable/Flex/3-Core/Tower-3-Core-Reel-Flexible-Cable-White-0-75mm-x-50m and at that price it is good value.   I would normally expect a 50m reel to be around £30.

No problems in making an extension lead with it - get a single trailing socket (not a twin as someone may decide to use the other one!) and don't forget a 1A fuse.

[Polchraine]

Welcome back to the UK, Polchraine. I hope you did not lose too much money in LA  

Were you thinking of Las Vegas?

Fortunately/unfortunately Los Angeles was for an meeting regarding some urgent customer issues.     Fly out, land, immigration, meeting, meal, fly back!     No time for anything else this time - just a bag with laptop, clean shirt and toothbrush.

[Simon]

Doesn't the customer have a phone? 

[armadillo]

Hi Polchraine

I actually came back home today with 20m of 2 core 3A mains cable (0.5 sq mm conductors) from Maplins (who are a lot more expensive (85p per metre) than Screwfix but convenient to get to). Having unplugged the router's adapter to check, it only needs 2 core - the "earth" pin is plastic, as they are on all my other power supplies. I am sure that current rating is fine. Even 0.5A at 240V would be 120W and I am sure the router does not use that much! I have run it through the loft which was the tricky part. I would not have got anything thicker through the hole, along with the LAN cable. I got a single trailing socket but did not find 1A fuses to fit a plug. Only 1A fuses they have are the little glass ones. So I got 3A. That would stop anyone getting any serious power out of the socket. Anyway, I am the only one here! And it will be well labelled, both plug and socket and up in the loft too. I shall connect it up tomorrow. I do not want to unplug and reconnect the router now as the noise margin has just dropped over 1dB. It was 9.8 this morning and is now 8.4. I would end up with a lower sync at that. I also got a surge protected adsl filter that plugs direct into the BT socket and has 2 phone outputs and one adsl output. If it works, it will be neat. I shall report back!

[ed for typo and clarity]

[armadillo]

Were you thinking of Las Vegas?

Shucks, yes. I knew something was not quite right 

As Simon says, maybe they should have a phone, or even a webcam.

[armadillo]

Thanks Ted

I shall order Adslnation's 0.5m Pro+ RJ11 as soon as I have tested that everything is OK with the UPS mains extension. I will connect it up tomorrow.  I certainly shall report back on progress!

[Polchraine]

3A fuse should be fine ... I suggested 1A as belt and braces!

I have an advantage with Screwfix - daughter works for them, so 20% extra discount and personal delivery!

I actually came back home today with 20mm of 2 core 3A mains cable ...

And I hope you bought more than 20mm !

Timing the change over is an art!    I can get a stable (3dB noise at initial sync) connection where the SNR margin will drop to 0 dB or just below and rise to 6dB during a 24 hour period.   If I mistime it and get the sync too high the SNR drops to far and I get an auto resync with the loss of 1Mb,  or if I sync too low I loose 500k.     Currently I have been synced for 6 weeks - ...

[armadillo]

3A fuse should be fine ... I suggested 1A as belt and braces!

I tend to do belt and braces too.

I have an advantage with Screwfix - daughter works for them, so 20% extra discount and personal delivery!

Useful!

And I hope you bought more than 20mm !

LOL. That was one of the typos I just corrected in my edit!

Timing the change over is an art!    I can get a stable (3dB noise at initial sync) connection where the SNR margin will drop to 0 dB or just below and rise to 6dB during a 24 hour period.   If I mistime it and get the sync too high the SNR drops to far and I get an auto resync with the loss of 1Mb,  or if I sync too low I loose 500k.     Currently I have been synced for 6 weeks - ...

BT appear to have set a 9dB target noise margin on my line because I always sync at whatever sync speed will give 9dB. Once synced (and have been at 7616 for several days), margin varies from just over 6dB to just under 10dB. Morning seems to be the safest time. I shall just check that margin is nicely over 9dB and then power off and connect my surge protected filter. If that drops the sync significantly, I can power off again and reconnect without it and hope that I will not lose anything. And once I have a good sync, I shall then leave it alone for 3 days. I did a BT speed test at about 1 am, I got this

Download speed achieved during the test was - 5962 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 600-7150 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :7616 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 6500 Kbps


It would be a shame to spoil it! BTW, download speed was higher on other speed testers and on actual proper downloads.

[Polchraine]

3A fuse should be fine ... I suggested 1A as belt and braces!

I tend to do belt and braces too.

Actually, its more like worn out knicker elastic - a little bit to much and it fails!

[armadillo]

Actually, its more like worn out knicker elastic - a little bit to much and it fails!

LOL

[armadillo]

I can now report some excellent results.

I powered down the router and connected it, my phone and an extension through the new surge protected adsl filter that I bought from Maplin yesterday (details below). Then I connected power to the router via the extension cable through my loft, plugged into my UPS (which has integral power surge protection).

Result - full surge protection to both power and telecom with zero impact on sync speed, noise, attenuation or throughput.

Immediately before the alteration (i.e. telecom via ordinary adsl filters without surge protection, and router power via local surge protector), I recorded all the router stats and did a speedtest.net speedtest. After the alteration, I repeated those.

In both cases, I got
Attenuation 32dB
Sync 7616
Noise margin 9.5dB
Speedtest 6.4Mbps

So this Maplin adsl surge protector seems to have zero impact on performance, unlike the Belkin one in a surge protected power supply, which reduced my sync by 1600kbps.

The router is still connected to the surge protector via a plain RJ11 to RJ11 flat cable about 2m long. I have ordered a 0.5m Pro+ Cat5 shielded connector from AdslNation (thanks Ted!). When it arrives, I shall see if replacing the flat cable makes any difference and report my findings.

Here are details of the Maplin surge protector:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=97672

and I took some photos before I connected it up




I emailed Clarity to ask about stock on their surge protector but have had no reply after 24 hours. Looks as though the Maplin's one is perfect though. Of course, I have not tested how good the surge protection is!

[Simon]

Good result!  We'll try to arrange a thunderstorm for you. 

[armadillo]

Simon, no, no, no 

[Simon]

[Polchraine]

Sounds promising ...

I found that using the Cat5e cable from phone socket to router gave me an extra dB or so of noise margin - it runs past the ISDN NTE, a 4 line ISDN PBX and alarm control panel, so plenty of noise around.

[armadillo]

An extra dB could be useful. I don't think my environment is quite as noisy as yours but you never know. I should find out soon; adslnation sent me an email this afternoon to say it has been despatched. Should be here Thursday/Friday, I suppose. I was planning to stay connected for a few days before powering off to fit it anyway.

[g7pkf]

Oh dear once again i am going to be the bearer of questionability.

point 1.)With stats like that you must live fairly close to the exchange.
       2.)The main BT/Virgin point that bt use already has surge protection on it.
       

Think you may have wasted your money on 2 counts, one your so close to exchange only a real severe strike direct to cable/exchange or house  (or very very close) would cause a problem, any other "near" strikes would be dealt with by the surge arrestor's at either the exchange in your main BT point or both.

sorry i do however agree mains should be filtered but unless your router is a long way from the main BT point i see no point, and even then you would have to have the surge arrestor next to your router.


Also i wonder how good it is on a very "borderline" adsl connection's?  I may buy one just to test (i can incorparate it into my faceplate testing).
G7PKF

[armadillo]

Hi g7pjkf

Yes, I am about 2km from the exchange.
I did not know that the main BT point has surge protection though Rik did mention that a lightning strike on or near the exchange could cause a surge to be transmitted down the phone line.

However, I think that is not quite the point. I may have spent some money unnecessarily, in technical terms, but I have not wasted it.

In considering whether to attempt to avoid an undesirable event (usually wrongly called a risk), one considers
(a) The probability of the occurrence of the event
(b) the cost, financial or otherwise, of taking action to reduce either the probability or the consequences.
(c) the consequences of the event, should it occur, including the emotional cost of having failed to take action.

In this case, as for (a) the probability may well be very small.

(b) the cost of a surge protector was a mere £15, not a life changing sum. And this surge protector has no impact on the performance of my internet connection.

But (c), the consequences, should the event occur, are rather nasty - a fried PC motherboard, which I have experienced before through a different cause, and the regret for not having spent the £15, whether or not that spend would have prevented the event.

If the cost of a surge protector were, say, £1500 rather than £15, or if using a surge protector significantly impacted on the performance of the line, I can imagine regretting spending the money. There may indeed be an impact on a borderline connection and one would have to take that into account in deciding whether to use surge protection. But with £15 and no performance impact, I cannot imagine looking back, in five years, after no surges, and regretting having "wasted" that £15.

Hence I think it is a no brainer, at least for me; buy the surge protector.

Most of this thread has in fact been devoted to the best means of getting the router onto the UPS. The router, by the way, is about 6 inches away from the BT master socket!

If you do decide to buy one and test it, it will be interesting to see if your results bear out mine, namely no impact on the performance of the connection (assuming you buy the Maplins one I mentioned - other protectors I had tried had a large impact on service quality. Those were all part of surge protector devices which I had, or would have, bought, regardless of any desire to protect the telecom connection, and so incurred no additional cost).