Related: ethernet over barbed wire: http://www.sigcon.com/Pubs/edn/SoGoodBarbedWire.htm
ADSL works over wet string (2017)
11–20 of 157 posts
Re: ADSL works over wet string (2017)
#12Since seeing this article I've been curious about organic conductors .. apparently most carbohydrates / celluloses are really not good basis for conduction but maybe there are tricks to change that. - https://www.quora.com/Is-cellulose-fibre-conductive?share=1 - https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=conducting+polymers+example...
Essentially you need loose electrons to conduct.
That's not exactly correct. Electrons don't flow through wires - there's a one-way flow of the ambient electrons around the wire from the field created.
Re: ADSL works over wet string (2017)
#13Since seeing this article I've been curious about organic conductors .. apparently most carbohydrates / celluloses are really not good basis for conduction but maybe there are tricks to change that. - https://www.quora.com/Is-cellulose-fibre-conductive?share=1 - https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=conducting+polymers+example...
Essentially you need loose electrons to conduct.
But maybe you could have different organic crystalline structures allowing AC currents to flow. Wildly speculating of course.. I was just hoping to tape in forest materials to manufacture low power electric devices :)
Re: ADSL works over wet string (2017)
#14Since seeing this article I've been curious about organic conductors .. apparently most carbohydrates / celluloses are really not good basis for conduction but maybe there are tricks to change that. - https://www.quora.com/Is-cellulose-fibre-conductive?share=1 - https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=conducting+polymers+example...
Paper and cotton were both used in cable insulation in ye olden days, impregnated with oils and tars
Re: ADSL works over wet string (2017)
#15Our homes' water supplies are untapped options for data connectivity.
Re: ADSL works over wet string (2017)
#163.5Mbit!? Says a lot about my parents paltry 1Mbit. Perhaps their line was low on sodium.
The cable analyzer is showing about 55db of loss across 2 meters. That's about equivalent to the loss across 4km of "good" copper.
Re: ADSL works over wet string (2017)
#17That fact that this delivers 3.5 MBit/s really makes you wonder how many low speed connections out in the wild are literally broken cables that still have some amount of coupling somewhere.
I lived in a forested area as a kid and the copper wire was always breaking for various reasons (falling branches, old deployment, temperature and humidity, etc). The ISP would always attempt to reduce the speed and leave it at that. It took a lot of effort as well as personally locating the breakage to get them to come and repair it properly (and it still took forever).
Re: ADSL works over wet string (2017)
#18That fact that this delivers 3.5 MBit/s really makes you wonder how many low speed connections out in the wild are literally broken cables that still have some amount of coupling somewhere.
Potentially apocryphal, but Telstra's copper cable network supposedly had its insulation made of paper, not rubber. I remember when it rained the curbside pits fill with water, causing slowdowns and frequent ADSL dropouts (until things dried out).
I think this is common in places where they don't expect moisture to reach, but then things change and it gets there anyway.
If your POTS lines are down and the telecom company is telling you a "wet pulp repair" is underway, your phones are going to be down for a while because a bunch of paper-insulated cables need to be manually rewired because they got wet and corroded.
I found this interesting: http://etler.com/docs/bsp-archive/629/629-295-300_I3.pdf - guess it's standard practice to dry out the lines, wrap in cloth, put dessicant and then seal it.
Re: ADSL works over wet string (2017)
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Essentially you need loose electrons to conduct.
That's not exactly correct. Electrons don't flow through wires - there's a one-way flow of the ambient electrons around the wire from the field created. See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHIhgxav9LY
That video is misleading. Electrons must be relatively loose in their orbitals in order for the electromagnetic field to be established with reasonable strength. This does not mean that electricity is the literal flow of electrons. However, electrons actually do flow at a speed of about 1 mm/min due to the electrostatic field in DC circuits. This is not what’s called electricity but they do flow.
Re: ADSL works over wet string (2017)
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Essentially you need loose electrons to conduct.
That's not exactly correct. Electrons don't flow through wires - there's a one-way flow of the ambient electrons around the wire from the field created. See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHIhgxav9LY
Well .. they do flow in the conductor, and in particular they flow through silicon junctions or none of the semiconductor physics would make sense, but the energy is carried in the field which is indeed outside the conductor.