NA Cascading Routers

jnmeade

jnmeade

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Eastern Iowa
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Jim Meade
I'd like to add a wi-fi router to my shop. It is located about 150 feet from my Netgear Nighthawk router. There is a computer in the shop connected to the Nighthawk with ethernet wire. I'd like to put a wireless router in the shop to support my tablet and smartphone as well as the computer. The computer should be hard wired to the secondary router but the other devices will need to be wireless.
I think the router to router connection can be LAN to LAN but am open to education on that.
I've looked online and found some discussions but I get lost. If someone has a good reference for dummies, I'd be obliged.
I have a couple of potential secondary routers. One is an old Belkin N150 and another is a Netgear WGPS606 which says it's a wireless print server. I can buy another router if one of those don't work.
Thanks for any suggestions.
 
If you are looking to connect a wired device, you will need a router that can do bridged mode. Is this one big connected house or is your shop a free standing building? If you are spanning to an external building, you may want to consider dedicated APs with external directional antenna's. You are likely to have performance and connection issues, depending on the walls and other external RF interference. 150 feet is quite far for a standard home Wifi router. Performance drops off quickly as you stretch the range.
 
The shop is free standing. It is metal. Right now, the computer which is in the shop and wired to the router in the house seems to be OK for performance, but I have not measured it in any meaningful way. (Our DSL is so slow and so bad I don't have any great expectations of it, anyway, so might not know bad performance if I saw it.)
I'm hoping the secondary router in the shop will work as a wi-fi for inside the shop, only. I don't need it to work outside.
 
Most low end Wifi routers aren't going to be able to do concurrent bridge and AP mode. You can get a Wifi repeater, but most of those won't offered wired connectivity. You are probably going to need two devices at a minimum and you will need to do some testing to see how reliable the connection is to your shop (I am guessing it isn't great, since are looking to put another device out there for Wifi connectivity). You might be able to add a Wifi repeater somewhere in between your current router and the shop (maybe not since it is a separate building) and then add a bridge at your shop. You will probably need to do something more purpose built if you want a reliable connection, like a dedicated bridge on both sides with directional antennas and the a separate Wifi AP in the shop.
 
Thanks for the help. I don't want to connect the two routers wirelessly. Maybe what I want is a repeater or extender. I'll keep investigating.
 
jsstevens said:
What you need is a Wireless Access Point and a small switch. Hook the original line that now connects your computer into the switch. Hook the computer into the switch. Hook the Wireless Access Point into the switch. voila!

Examples:
Wireless Access Point: https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-Ceil...811229&sr=1-12&keywords=wireless+access+point

Switch: https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-5-Po...id=1485811403&sr=1-3&keywords=ethernet+switch

John
Click to expand...

OK, so I plug the ethernet now going to my computer in the shop into the wireless access point, connect the WAP to the switch, and plug the computer into the switch. Connect my tablet and smartphone wi-fi to the net via the WAP while in the shop. Is that right?
 
jnmeade said:
OK, so I plug the ethernet now going to my computer in the shop into the wireless access point, connect the WAP to the switch, and plug the computer into the switch. Connect my tablet and smartphone wi-fi to the net via the WAP while in the shop. Is that right?
Click to expand...

No. Connect the switch to the wire now plugged into your computer. The connect both the computer and the WAP to the switch. Then all the WiFi stuff to the WAP via WiFi.
 
jnmeade said:
OK, so I plug the ethernet now going to my computer in the shop into the wireless access point, connect the WAP to the switch, and plug the computer into the switch. Connect my tablet and smartphone wi-fi to the net via the WAP while in the shop. Is that right?
Click to expand...
This works, with as I described, the Wifi router in "bridge" mode (a low end Wifi router in bridge mode, will not provide WAP services concurrently). This will only work, if you have a good Wifi signal in your shop now. It doesn't help, if you don't have a good signal in your shop. As you said, you may need an extender to boost your Wifi signal. If there is no place to plug in an extender that would be a median distance between your current WAP and the shop, or if the metal walls of the shop are causing signal attenuation or you have some RF interference, this may not help. If you can not solve it with an extender, the next step would be to use dedicated bridging WAPs with directional antennas. From the remote bridge (the shop) you could then plug a switch and possibly another WAP into that, to provide services to the shop.
 
John221us said:
This works, with as I described, the Wifi router in "bridge" mode (a low end Wifi router in bridge mode, will not provide WAP services concurrently). This will only work, if you have a good Wifi signal in your shop now. It doesn't help, if you don't have a good signal in your shop. As you said, you may need an extender to boost your Wifi signal. If there is no place to plug in an extender that would be a median distance between your current WAP and the shop, or if the metal walls of the shop are causing signal attenuation or you have some RF interference, this may not help. If you can not solve it with an extender, the next step would be to use dedicated bridging WAPs with directional antennas. From the remote bridge (the shop) you could then plug a switch and possibly another WAP into that, to provide services to the shop.
Click to expand...
John, something I don't understand is I get the impression you think I have wi-fi in the shop now. I do not. I have a computer hard wired via ethernet cable to the router in the house. I'm hoping to put wi-fi in the shop by putting a secondary router on the shop end of the ethernet cable. However, I'm pretty dense on this so maybe I'm misunderstanding you.
 
jnmeade said:
John, something I don't understand is I get the impression you think I have wi-fi in the shop now. I do not. I have a computer hard wired via ethernet cable to the router in the house. I'm hoping to put wi-fi in the shop by putting a secondary router on the shop end of the ethernet cable. However, I'm pretty dense on this so maybe I'm misunderstanding you.
Click to expand...
Oh. I guess I misunderstood you. So, you have copper to the shop. I thought you were trying to leverage Wifi. Then, yes, hookup a WAP to the copper (Ethernet) and most of those have a built in switch to plug the computer into. That will give you a hard wired connection for the computer and Wifi in the shop. If you give it the same SSID and passcode, your devices should just connect.

Edit: don't use the WAN connection, just the switch ports to connect the WAP to the copper, as well as the computer.
 
jnmeade said:
OK, so I plug the ethernet now going to my computer in the shop into the wireless access point, connect the WAP to the switch, and plug the computer into the switch. Connect my tablet and smartphone wi-fi to the net via the WAP while in the shop. Is that right?
Click to expand...
This recommendation is very intriguing and I am inclined to go with it. My only question before I do is whether a Netgear WAP would match up better with my Netgear Nighthawk router? Thanks for your help.
 
jnmeade said:
This recommendation is very intriguing and I am inclined to go with it. My only question before I do is whether a Netgear WAP would match up better with my Netgear Nighthawk router? Thanks for your help.
Click to expand...
It shouldn't matter much. You aren't going to get roaming, anyway. Just use the same settings for SSID, passcode and encryption as the inside router.
 
jsstevens said:
What you need is a Wireless Access Point and a small switch. Hook the original line that now connects your computer into the switch. Hook the computer into the switch. Hook the Wireless Access Point into the switch. voila!

Examples:
Wireless Access Point: https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-Ceil...811229&sr=1-12&keywords=wireless+access+point

Switch: https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-5-Po...id=1485811403&sr=1-3&keywords=ethernet+switch

John
Click to expand...

John, I bought this, hooked it up and it worked fine. I had to do some software thing to the Surface to get it to connect, but everything else was "right out of the box". Thank you very much for your help.
 
jnmeade said:
I'm hoping to put wi-fi in the shop by putting a secondary router on the shop end of the ethernet cable.
Click to expand...
You don't want a second router. You only need one router. The router goes between your DSL/Cable modem and the rest of your network.

A router is usually made up of three components. A firewall/NAT/DHCP server, switch, and wireless access point (WAP). You only want one firewall/NAT/DHCP server.

A switch is the Ethernet equivalent of a splitter. It allows you to take your one Ethernet cable in the shop and turn it into multiple LAN ports.

A WAP is what makes a wifi hotspot. You plug the WAP into your router (like the shop computer is now) or a switch. You'd use a switch because you need a second LAN outlet in the shop to support both the computer and the WAP.
 
jnmeade said:
John, I bought this, hooked it up and it worked fine. I had to do some software thing to the Surface to get it to connect, but everything else was "right out of the box". Thank you very much for your help.
Click to expand...
You're most welcome.
 
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