PLC network has stopped working

[cobito]

Hello. A month ago I bought a kit of two TPLink AV500 nano PLCs (this one here). At first it worked correctly. Later I changed one of them to a slightly irregular outlet: a power strip connected to another power strip and both power strips almost full of switched power supplies. There it continued to work but occasionally it disconnected. Unplugging it and plugging it back in made it work again. Yesterday, while transferring data (at the limit of a 100Mbps ethernet connection), it stopped working. I did the operation of disconnecting and reconnecting but it has not worked again.

I have connected the PLC that was in the second power strip to the first one. I have pressed the pairing button and also left it pressed for 10 seconds to reset both, but there is no way. The 3 leds remain lit at all times.

One PLC is connected to a desktop PC and the other to the router.

Do you have any ideas?

Thanks.

[krampak]

Have you tried between 2 direct wall sockets in the same phase? Although it won't serve as a solution, at least to rule out that the gadget hasn't blown up.

[cobito]

@krampak Yesterday I did what you told me and it worked. Then I plugged it back into the power strip and it worked for several hours without any problems. Let's see how long it lasts. If the disconnection problem comes back, I'll leave it plugged into the other outlet that has nothing on it.

[Mystique]

They don't work very well behind power strips. Best to plug them directly into the wall

[kynes]

What @Mystique says, especially the ones that have surge protection.

[rul3s]

What @Mystique says is true, but it happened to me more with the first PLCs I bought, with the second ones, even when both were behind the power strips, they worked very well.

Now, during the time I was using PLCs, I discovered that they are very, very sensitive to large appliances, especially the washing machine. In my case, turning on the washing machine would automatically cause the PLC to either work very slowly or stop working altogether.

Despite this, I understand that the problem must be something else since you are experiencing a problem that you didn't have before and in the same situation. Although maybe something similar to what I told you happened, you connected something to the network that generates a lot of interference and that's why you stopped working over the network. That, or simply they broke down and lost a lot of sensitivity and that's why in one power strip both work but when you separate them, they don't.

[Obione]

Being a PLC user for a long time, I can share my experience and opinion.

I installed it to reduce ping spikes and I saw that when I had ADSL, it was sucking at full line speed, but occasionally it failed, just like with wi-fi. Now with fiber, I see that I get 25 out of 50. Honestly, it fails similarly.

Then there are household gadgets that create fluctuations in the power line and sometimes it's very difficult to pinpoint them, such as a pump or any other damn thing that can influence a building, which a technician friend of mine told me about, who went crazy when he saw that a neon light from the apartment above (belonging to another owner) was affecting the neighbor downstairs.

Honestly, I've been doing acceptably well, but I have 5 days off and tomorrow I'll start asking for the crimping tool because I'm tired of it. I think I'll run the cable around the corners with a glue gun.

[cobito]

Thanks to everyone for the responses. I'm new to this PLC thing and to be honest, it's a bit of a disappointment. I was expecting similar speed and stability to 100Mbps ethernet. The speed is fine (the 100mbps is reached most of the time) but the problem of the cuts is a bit annoying. In one of the PLCs there is no problem using a socket exclusively but at the other end it is not possible (although there I only have the PC and the screen).

Considering the distance between the room where the PC is and the router, in this case it would have been much more interesting to have a 5Ghz wifi stick.

By the way, now there are hardly any cuts, but they still happen very occasionally.

[krampak]

I have a PLC (TP-Link 500Mbps) mounted between the second floor and the garage of the house and I have never noticed any cuts, to be honest, and that is because I have it in a power strip with a 5-meter cable sharing with the computer, standing fan, speakers... it should be said that I have never given it more than 3 hours of uninterrupted use (it is the one I use to give connection to the PC in the garage where I have the cycling simulator).

I am more annoyed by the wifi of the Movistar fiber router, which occasionally gives me cuts and especially bothers me when I play Clash Royale xD

[Obione]

With good electrical installation and short runs, without gadgets that can create interference, a PLC can work really well. To give an example, a new build duplex where the wifi doesn't even go through a floor, the PLC works great in a different floor.

I'm in a house with an old installation (lots of thin cable), 2 pumps (the one that brings power to the water inlet and the pool) and I'm near an electrical substation. There's a lot of interference at play.

I usually get OK speeds but, there are certain hours, when the irrigation is turned on or I don't know what else, it sometimes fails. I've tried more than once on the office equipment when it gets cut off and I see that it works perfectly by cable.

Editing: I guess it's all about trying it out, and if it suits you, enjoy it. It's worked for me to a certain extent, I've gone through wifi and this, and I don't want any more failures, it's not much of a hassle to run cable and I'm going to do it.