Signaling over powerline help

Try searching for "powerline modem".

Phonex's "ReadyWire" looks interesting, but I believe the web page saying "Available soon for developers" has not changed in the last couple years ...

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Their Neverwire14 works very well, though. There are similar products from several other companies.

Roberto Waltman

Hi Roberto and thanks for your reply. I not looking for something this elaborate. I don't need the high transfer rate. I'll be using a PIC micro and sending a few bytes to one or more PIC's. Ken

"carrier current" X10 + reciever, transmitter etc.

As well as being potentially dangerous, it's not easy to get this sort of thing to work reliably. I suggest you forget about it and use wireless technology.

If you're in North America, in a residential situaiton, with our split mains, you may also have to worry about getting data across the two sides. Commercial may use 208 3-phase so it's got double trouble.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Hi Spehro, I'm aware of the danger and plain to use opto isolators. I also know about the split mains. Thanks, Ken

P.S. you can also look at the LM2893/LM1893 data sheets (the parts are now discontinued but there are still thousands floating around) to see some details of power line coupling using transformers and FSK encoding/decoding.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Spehro is right, forget this scheme. Use wireless.

There are cheap tx-rx pairs that might serve over a 30m or so, particularly in wood frame houses. Search for TLP434 and RLP434. You also need an encoder and decoder, unless you want to do it yourself using bit-banging, which is ill advised. One encoder-decoder pair are the ones from Holtek, the HT12E/HT12D pair. This set works well with a short wire antenna, and can be extended using better antennas.

For less than $20 US, you can easily build a one-way channel between two microcontrollers that will support a data rate of 500 bytes/sec.

You might also be able to use the encoder / decoder chips over the powerline (using transformers of some kind, I'm guessing), but you run into the issues others have pointed out.

Finally, I seem to recall a technote from national that shows how to transmit music over powerlines. That might also have some tips.

Hello Bob,

PLC can work nicely, just not that old AM protocol of X-10. Wireless can be much more of a challenge. For example, it is very hard to maintain an ISM wireless link into our garage at a reasonable (or legal) power level. Via PLC I can reach there with ease.

With PLC you can do that for a few Dollars.

Just don't get suckered into any kind of carrier on/off AM protocol ;-)

Regards, Joerg

Instead of X10, try UPB.