Two weeks ago I woke a New Zealand customer by calling at 3 a.m. Friday my phone rang at 4 a.m. with a call from a customer in Europe. Last weekend I traded many emails and phone calls with one of our engineers in Arizona.
I’m “connected” and I didn’t even realize it. Calls to my home or office pervasively route to my cell no matter where in the world I am. Emails fly in from all corners of the globe and rarely stay unread for more than a few hours. I routinely remotely access most anything in the office, from my desktop to whatever the latest products are going through QA. All this connectivity no longer amazes, we simply expect it.
But, “off the grid” equipment is a risk. How do you know when it’s down, when it needs maintenance? Waiting for symptoms of equipment failure aren’t good enough anymore. When something’s going south, we want to know about it - yesterday.
Today I promise to show you a unique solution to a connectivity problem that’s plagued us all. And here’s something you might find slightly refreshing – it’s not wireless.
(If you’re disappointed, not to worry, come see me at the Sensor Show next week in Chicago and you’ll see all our latest wireless goodies!)
There’s still a lot of wiring around. We’ve been relying on wires so long that we’ve got them run most everywhere. But, sometimes, it’s just not the right wire for the right application. Our new Ethernet Extender isn’t picky. Give it virtually any pair of wires up to a mile long and it will bless you with a high speed Ethernet connection in return. No need to pull a Cat5 cable or fiber, just find an existing pair of unused, copper wires and connect an Extender at both ends. Extra conductors in an old phone cable or control cable will work just fine.
Below are just a few problems from our tech support files we’ve been able to solve with this unique product.
1. Facing increased security requirements, a Midwestern manufacturing plant needed to add a badge scanner and a networked PC to the guard shack at its gated entrance. Pulling fiber in the existing 700 foot phone line conduit was expensive and labor intensive. Adding a wireless 802.11 connection required the mounting of directional antennas on the outside of the buildings causing installation complications and expense. A pair of Ethernet Extenders allowed the use of an extra pair of conductors in the existing phone line to bridge the Ethernet LAN from the plant to the guard shack and reduced the total installed cost of parts and labor to less than $1000.
2. A ski resort wanted to add a networked display to the top of its ski lifts for condition reports, guest messaging and advertising. Fiber optic was too expensive. Wireless was feasible, but required several weather-protected repeater stations, dramatically increasing expense. Extra conductors in the existing control wiring were identified and a pair of Ethernet Extenders provided a high bandwidth Ethernet connection to the top of the slopes, eliminating nearly 100% of the labor cost of the installation.
3. A boutique real estate company outgrew its ground floor space in the historic district of Charleston, South Carolina. Expanding offices to the second floor required the expansion of their LAN. A hardwired connection was preferred but installation of additional cable runs risked the need for complex historic building permit approvals. Simply using a pair of Ethernet Extenders over existing phone system wiring, coupled with an Ethernet switch, provided 16 additional high-speed Ethernet ports on the second story.
4. Six above-ground storage tanks of an Australian winery were half a mile from the office. Each had its own temperature control system but monitoring the tanks required daily manual readings. Simply running inexpensive phone cabling to the first tank allowed a pair of Ethernet extenders and an industrial Ethernet Switch to create a high speed Ethernet link to each of the tank’s control systems, providing at-a-glance status and instantaneous automated alerts when any of the control systems experienced a failure.
If you’ve got a piece of hard-to-reach equipment, take a hard look around and see if you can find or free up an existing wired connection. If you can find a pair of wires, we can get you a long distance high speed connection that can be adapted to nearly any piece of equipment or sensor.
Ethernet Copper Extender
Happy Connections,
Mike Fahrion
B&B Electronics
support@bb-elec.com
(815)433-5100
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