# Bridge for Internet Connection



## MikeFL (Apr 16, 2016)

Walk in to Best Buy and talk to them. 
Unless you need something industrial duty.
Is this outbuilding your hobby shed or your place of employment building spacecraft engines?


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## CWL (Jul 7, 2020)

Just a shop for my personal use away from work. I plan to use the connection for cell phone data and a laptop or television connection like Amazon firestick or similar.


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## Kevin (Feb 14, 2017)

I'm your guy for this. 

First buy 2 Ubiquiti nanobeam radios. Put one on the house and one on the shed. They come with PoE supplies.

Then, buy a Ubiquiti access point. This one is the long range model.

Programing is something that is pretty straight forward with the included instructions, but I can help you with it remotely using TeamViewer.


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## Kevin (Feb 14, 2017)

Oh some questions for you, the shed, if it's not weatherproof you have to use an outdoor access point. The one that I linked above the indoor only access point. And my advice I would be to mount a matching access points on the house. With an access point on the house and on the shed you can disable the SSID on your router.


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## CWL (Jul 7, 2020)

Thank you Kevin. The outbuilding insulated and weatherproof.


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## SteveBayshore (Apr 7, 2013)

I had the Geek Squad guys at Beat Buy supply and install outdoor antennas on my house and my office, across the street, 10 years ago. Still working good.


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## Frank DuVal (Feb 6, 2009)

Kevin said:


> With an access point on the house and on the shed you can disable the SSID on your router.


Followed just fine right up to this point. I guess Google will supply an answer to what is SSID.  And why I would want to disable it.


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## emtnut (Mar 1, 2015)

Frank DuVal said:


> Followed just fine right up to this point. I guess Google will supply an answer to what is SSID.  And why I would want to disable it.


It's the Wi-Fi identifier. The access point will be the Wi-Fi now ... so you turn off the one on the router.


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## CMP (Oct 30, 2019)

You could get a simple outdoor router like this for your outbuilding, if you can get a signal outside already. Just one radio and link it with your house router, run a cable link into your outbuilding equipment.

In*door/Outdoor airMAX*® CPE


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## MikeFL (Apr 16, 2016)

Why pay for internet if you don't have to?
(I pay for internet)
Build a wifi gun!


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## CMP (Oct 30, 2019)

airMAX NanoStation M2


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## NoBot (Oct 12, 2019)

CMP said:


> airMAX NanoStation M2


With the Nano Station M2, do you need two devices, one to send and one to receive? Or, is it similar to an outdoor access point?


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## CMP (Oct 30, 2019)

If there is a decent signal already outside from the home wifi, you can just use one nanostation mounted outside. Been using variations of them for years, in homes, commercial and industrial buildings.

With two of them you can create long lengths, but only need one to receive an existing signal.

When I get back to the office, I'll see if I can attach some photo examples.


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## CMP (Oct 30, 2019)

A few photos of older equipment installs and gear. These are outdoor WiFi radios/ routers, has a radio on one side and a wired port on the other side. They normally can be set up to broadcast or receive. 

For the outbuilding example, set up the radio side to receive from the home router and the wired port to carry the internet inside the building. You add a Ethernet switch or router indoors to the setup to gain more wired ports and or another wireless network.

These outdoor radios are powered through the Ethernet cable, with a POE (power over Ethernet) injector power supply on the indoor end of the cable.

Many of these are older models, but very similar to the newer NanoStation M2, it just has a better radio, newer encryption types, different frequency bands and, and faster speeds. If interested download the instruction sheet from the link given above.

If you use two radios, properly mounted, aimed and set up, you can cover some serious distances. But for a home/shop setup one will normally suffice.

An old generation 1 Nanostation on a commercial building.









Components of the Nanostation




































Typical Home/outbuilding setup pre-built and configured before mounting.
Backboard with duplex and chord. Two power supplies one for indoor router/ outdoor router. Indoor router has 4 wired ports and a wireless connection. Mount the radio outside, install the Ethernet cable from outside to the inside board and connect your devices. Some menu configuration required, not hard for a network novice.









Industrial roof setup, similar but longer range.


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## paulengr (Oct 8, 2017)

I second Ubiquiti. The Unifi series works awesome.

If you prefer look at TP Link M5 also. Works very similar.

With either product you set them up and they automatically relay packets from radio to radio as needed. TP Link radios are more consumer grade in nature while Ubiquiti is more commercial grade.


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## CWL (Jul 7, 2020)

Lots of good information here. I did some research on the Ubiquiti stuff last night. Looks like quality. Thank you gentleman.


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## CWL (Jul 7, 2020)

Just want to thank you all again on this project. I bought the Ubiquiti nanobeam radios that Kevin suggested. I had the day off today and installed them and a WiFi router I had. I'm out in the shop with a great signal and high speed wireless internet.


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## CWL (Jul 7, 2020)

Update:
Been using this setup for around 6 months now with no complaints.


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## paulengr (Oct 8, 2017)

What you will find is that when the consumer grade router dies, just switch over to the Ubiquiti radios and you won't be sorry. Been going on 5 years now at a nearby waste water plant the entire plant was originally wired with a very old network system (blue hose for those who remember it). There was effectively NO upgrade path and I really wasn't interested in trenching across a wastewater plant with no updated drawings. So we put them on Ubiquiti radios. Since then I've had ONE failure. The radio that is close to the effluent station had a badly corroded Ethernet patch cable. I replaced it and this time used silicone grease to seal the pins on the connector itself then coated the whole thing in liquid electrical tape. No problems since then. It has been running 24x7 for I think 5 years now. Recently replaced another PLC that was failing on the same site and because of where it was situated I was able to extend/modify the layout a little so that at this point each radio can see at least 2 other radios and have set them up in meshing mode where they fail over to the backup radio if any of them fail. It works so well that the plant operators just switch their cell phones over to it since they have plant wide wifi. It does not cause interference with the existing control system.


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## Kevin (Feb 14, 2017)

CWL said:


> Update:
> Been using this setup for around 6 months now with no complaints.


We have some Ubiquiti radios that have been deployed for over 5 years. Some have yellowed so much they' unrecognizable lol

We have had a few failures, but we buy and use such a large volume of them it's to be expected. 

Most common issue is damaged port (likely from ESD or surge or incompetence) or DOA.

I just acquired 12 Ubiquiti radios that have been deployed for a couple of years. I'm gonna reset them all and use 4 for a friend's off grid cabin to get wifi from my dad's place.


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## MotoGP1199 (Aug 11, 2014)

CWL said:


> Update:
> Been using this setup for around 6 months now with no complaints.


Thanks for the update. I have been using a lot of ubiquiti for my network, security, and wifi with great results for about 4 years. I was curious about some of there wifi beams and how well they work. Great to hear.


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## splatz (May 23, 2015)

Just the other day I get a call and find a Ubiquiti access point down. I checked my records, it was installed February 2012, so over 10 years old. IME wifi radios don't last forever and it's not expensive, normally I'd replace it without thinking about it. Unfortunately a lot of the Ubiquiti products including this one are unavailable right now, but I have some spares in inventory. 

Still I'd rather not go without spares and it's not a critical application, so I decided to see if I could fix it. I reset it, reflashed the firmware, restored the programming, and tested it - all good right now. We'll keep our fingers crossed and see, it might fail again soon, and if it does I'll replace it from my spares, but I am curious how long this thing might last.


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## LGLS (Nov 10, 2007)

splatz said:


> Just the other day I get a call and find a Ubiquiti access point down. I checked my records, it was installed February 2012, so over 10 years old. IME wifi radios don't last forever and it's not expensive, normally I'd replace it without thinking about it. Unfortunately a lot of the Ubiquiti products including this one are unavailable right now, but I have some spares in inventory.
> 
> Still I'd rather not go without spares and it's not a critical application, so I decided to see if I could fix it. I reset it, reflashed the firmware, restored the programming, and tested it - all good right now. We'll keep our fingers crossed and see, it might fail again soon, and if it does I'll replace it from my spares, but I am curious how long this thing might last.


OK but, would you mind telling me what wears out? Do the components in micro chips and printed circuit boards degrade over time? I know capacitors dry out, but I doubt there’s in any of those in a Wi-Fi access point.


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## paulengr (Oct 8, 2017)

LGLS said:


> OK but, would you mind telling me what wears out? Do the components in micro chips and printed circuit boards degrade over time? I know capacitors dry out, but I doubt there’s in any of those in a Wi-Fi access point.


There are plenty of capacitors but they are usually metal film or mica which doesn’t have a fluid to dry out. That is strictly an electrolytic problem.

The solder joints eventually fail after 10-15 years. You can’t stop it because it’s basically that the different materials expand and contract differently as temperature changes. Silver solders are much worse than lead-run solder. As a result components have roughly a 100,000 hour (10 year) design life. That’s ALL electronics.

Sintered connections (welding) fixes the problem but has high failure rates so only used in some exotic applications like drives for European trains,


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## CWL (Jul 7, 2020)

Just a quick update:
I have been using these Ubiquiti NBE-5AC antennas for a year trouble free. They are mounted outside with zero protection from the elements and still look brand new. Thanks again for the great advice.


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## 0hm (1 mo ago)

Kevin said:


> I'm your guy for this.
> 
> First buy 2 Ubiquiti nanobeam radios. Put one on the house and one on the shed. They come with PoE supplies.
> 
> ...


I'm currently doing this also, and have gotten as far as to set them up facing each other and connecting them (verified via ping) but still getting connected with no internet. 
* "--"indicates a connection made via hardwire
The current layout is
*Strarlink antenna -- starlink wireless router/modem(which only has 1 port for an extra connection other than the incoming signal from the starlink antenna)-- netgear wifi router(which is only being used because it needs a wire, and the Acess Point does too) -- mesh wifi
Also -- tp link ptp antenna Acess point end)*

Im going to try to put he starlink router into bridge mode. Is the fact that the issue is because I'm wired into the second router and then to the AP an antenna, opposed to straight to the AP antenna from the starlink modem?


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## Ty the electric guy (Feb 16, 2014)

I’m not an it guy but I think you need a switch instead of a router. The starlink is a router and I don’t think you can plug a router into another router without configuration.


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## Kevin (Feb 14, 2017)

0hm said:


> I'm currently doing this also, and have gotten as far as to set them up facing each other and connecting them (verified via ping) but still getting connected with no internet.
> * "--"indicates a connection made via hardwire
> The current layout is
> *Strarlink antenna -- starlink wireless router/modem(which only has 1 port for an extra connection other than the incoming signal from the starlink antenna)-- netgear wifi router(which is only being used because it needs a wire, and the Acess Point does too) -- mesh wifi
> ...


Bridge mode on the starlink system will bypass the routing that is built into the starlink system. Using bridge mode will require using your own router.

I cannot follow along with your post too well. Can you explain better what you have done and exactly what you are trying to do and exactly how everything is connected?


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