mistaake
Real Name: Michael
Hey everybody! I'm going to be putting WiFi into my Suburban. I'm going to use a Ubiquiti Bullet M2-HP connected to a flexible omni-directional antenna on the roof of the truck. From there I'm going to go to a PoE (Power over Ethernet) injector and then to another network device which will broadcast a local wireless network I can connect laptops, tablets, smartphones, etc. too.
Why not just use my laptop/tablet/smartphone to connect directly to the WiFi network and go through all this trouble? One simple answer - range. The wireless adapters/cards in any laptop/tablet/smartphone are not very powerful, simply because of cost, power, heat, and size constraints, compared to purpose-built equipment that is designed to connect to wireless networks with great distances. This would be very useful for road trips, camping, traveling, etc where WiFi might not be close by. I am considering living in my Suburban at least part time (not sure on that yet, but having reliable free internet would make this a much more attainable thing for my since I am a web designer/developer and having no internet means I'm not making any money)...
Ubiquiti Networks makes high quality low cost equipment for WISPS (Wireless ISPs) and allows local companies to compete with the hated titans of the industry. I have experience using a variety of their products both for business and personal use so when I got the chance to buy a brand new Bullet M2-HP for $16 I knew it was time to make my 1995 Suburban.
While some of you are probably going to want to kill me for this I am going to be making a hole in the roof of my Suburban for the antenna. This truck has 176K miles on it, is 20 years old, has crappy paint on the hood and roof, and doesn't have much resale value to begin with. Chances are I'll be it's last owner until it is either completely worn out or I wreck it (not that I plan on junking it anytime soon, but the point I'm trying to make is that nobody will care if there is a hole in the roof). if you have a nicer truck you might want to mount the antenna on a bumper instead and run the wire inside.
How it's gonna work: I'm going to mount the antenna in the roof above the rear cargo light. Since my light has already broken off, it's a perfect place to make a hole in the roof because the upper metal layer is already accessible. No modifications to the headliner will need to be made, so if I wanted to remove the mod I'd simply have to seal off the hole and put the light back in. The antenna is going to be mounted to a "bulkhead" which will seal off the hole from the elements. From there I'm going to go directly into the Ubiquiti Bullet M2-HP, to which an ethernet cable will be connected. This will run to the PoE injector and the rest of the equipment somewhere else in the truck.
An important consideration is signal strength. Every 1ft of antenna cable means -1db signal loss, which is why the Ubiquiti Bullet will be mounted right at the antenna and not at another less obvious location. A right angle adapter will be utilized between the antenna bulkhead on the inside of the vehicle and the Bullet so it doesn't stick straight down.
The actual equipment will be mounted elsewhere on a separate sheet of a material that is not flammable and/or sensitive to heat. I'm going to use a purpose built PoE injector designed to run off 12V DC rather than the standard style PoE injector which requires AC mains voltage to avoid running an inverter. Going from 12V DC to 120V AC and then back down the low voltage DC is stupid. It's much more efficient to go from 12V DC to 24V DC (for the PoE injector) and from 12V DC to either 12V DC or 5V DC (depending on the router/access point I end up using). A switch to turn the whole setup on and off will be attached to a relay which will be fused somewhere into the truck. I could certainly use some suggestions for that since I don't currently have a place in mind to tap into the electrical on the Suburban!
Parts list for the networking equipment side of things and the cost of each item (MSRP listed, though I did not pay full retail for any of this stuff). I have not yet compiled a complete parts list including things like switch, relay, wiring, etc. but that is to come! I am not including the second piece of network equipment required to serve as the actual wireless router for the "local network" for two reasons. First off, you could skip that entirely and simply use an ethernet cable directly connected to a laptop computer if you simply wanted to get online with one device, and second, because I assume that most people have a spare wireless router floating around. You don't need the latest and greatest router because speeds are limited through this setup anyway (the Ubiquiti Bullet M2 only supports a theoretical 100Mbps maximum anyway and real-world performance will probably be lower due to signal strength and distance) and you don't need to cover an entire home with WiFi, just a smaller area.
Tycon Power Systems TP-DCDC-1224 9-36VDC IN 24VDC OUT, 19W DC to DC Conv. - $36.95
http://www.streakwave.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=TP-DCDC-1224
Laird Technologies MA24-7N 7dBi Mobile Antenna (Select Mount) - $17.13
http://www.streakwave.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=MA24-7N
Laird Technologies AD-NF-NFB N Female to N Female Bulkhead - $4.95
http://www.streakwave.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=AD-NF-NFB
Laird Technologies AD-NF-NM-RT N Female to N Male Right Angle Adapter - $5.95
http://www.streakwave.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=AD-NF-NM-RT
Ubiquiti Bullet M2-HP-US High Power version Bullet 2.4Ghz 11N US - $79.00
http://www.streakwave.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=BulletM2HP-US
Why not just use my laptop/tablet/smartphone to connect directly to the WiFi network and go through all this trouble? One simple answer - range. The wireless adapters/cards in any laptop/tablet/smartphone are not very powerful, simply because of cost, power, heat, and size constraints, compared to purpose-built equipment that is designed to connect to wireless networks with great distances. This would be very useful for road trips, camping, traveling, etc where WiFi might not be close by. I am considering living in my Suburban at least part time (not sure on that yet, but having reliable free internet would make this a much more attainable thing for my since I am a web designer/developer and having no internet means I'm not making any money)...
Ubiquiti Networks makes high quality low cost equipment for WISPS (Wireless ISPs) and allows local companies to compete with the hated titans of the industry. I have experience using a variety of their products both for business and personal use so when I got the chance to buy a brand new Bullet M2-HP for $16 I knew it was time to make my 1995 Suburban.
While some of you are probably going to want to kill me for this I am going to be making a hole in the roof of my Suburban for the antenna. This truck has 176K miles on it, is 20 years old, has crappy paint on the hood and roof, and doesn't have much resale value to begin with. Chances are I'll be it's last owner until it is either completely worn out or I wreck it (not that I plan on junking it anytime soon, but the point I'm trying to make is that nobody will care if there is a hole in the roof). if you have a nicer truck you might want to mount the antenna on a bumper instead and run the wire inside.
How it's gonna work: I'm going to mount the antenna in the roof above the rear cargo light. Since my light has already broken off, it's a perfect place to make a hole in the roof because the upper metal layer is already accessible. No modifications to the headliner will need to be made, so if I wanted to remove the mod I'd simply have to seal off the hole and put the light back in. The antenna is going to be mounted to a "bulkhead" which will seal off the hole from the elements. From there I'm going to go directly into the Ubiquiti Bullet M2-HP, to which an ethernet cable will be connected. This will run to the PoE injector and the rest of the equipment somewhere else in the truck.
An important consideration is signal strength. Every 1ft of antenna cable means -1db signal loss, which is why the Ubiquiti Bullet will be mounted right at the antenna and not at another less obvious location. A right angle adapter will be utilized between the antenna bulkhead on the inside of the vehicle and the Bullet so it doesn't stick straight down.
The actual equipment will be mounted elsewhere on a separate sheet of a material that is not flammable and/or sensitive to heat. I'm going to use a purpose built PoE injector designed to run off 12V DC rather than the standard style PoE injector which requires AC mains voltage to avoid running an inverter. Going from 12V DC to 120V AC and then back down the low voltage DC is stupid. It's much more efficient to go from 12V DC to 24V DC (for the PoE injector) and from 12V DC to either 12V DC or 5V DC (depending on the router/access point I end up using). A switch to turn the whole setup on and off will be attached to a relay which will be fused somewhere into the truck. I could certainly use some suggestions for that since I don't currently have a place in mind to tap into the electrical on the Suburban!
Parts list for the networking equipment side of things and the cost of each item (MSRP listed, though I did not pay full retail for any of this stuff). I have not yet compiled a complete parts list including things like switch, relay, wiring, etc. but that is to come! I am not including the second piece of network equipment required to serve as the actual wireless router for the "local network" for two reasons. First off, you could skip that entirely and simply use an ethernet cable directly connected to a laptop computer if you simply wanted to get online with one device, and second, because I assume that most people have a spare wireless router floating around. You don't need the latest and greatest router because speeds are limited through this setup anyway (the Ubiquiti Bullet M2 only supports a theoretical 100Mbps maximum anyway and real-world performance will probably be lower due to signal strength and distance) and you don't need to cover an entire home with WiFi, just a smaller area.
Tycon Power Systems TP-DCDC-1224 9-36VDC IN 24VDC OUT, 19W DC to DC Conv. - $36.95
http://www.streakwave.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=TP-DCDC-1224
Laird Technologies MA24-7N 7dBi Mobile Antenna (Select Mount) - $17.13
http://www.streakwave.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=MA24-7N
Laird Technologies AD-NF-NFB N Female to N Female Bulkhead - $4.95
http://www.streakwave.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=AD-NF-NFB
Laird Technologies AD-NF-NM-RT N Female to N Male Right Angle Adapter - $5.95
http://www.streakwave.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=AD-NF-NM-RT
Ubiquiti Bullet M2-HP-US High Power version Bullet 2.4Ghz 11N US - $79.00
http://www.streakwave.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=BulletM2HP-US
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