Power from ceiling light

[Ajju]

I''m a tru newbie to electrical wiring so please humor me here...I have an RJ45 cable hanging from the hallway ceiling on the main floor of my house (it's the center of the house and will cover the entire house with a wireless acess point signal). Problem is...when the wiring was run i forgot to put a power receptacle in the ceiling for the wireless router. There is however, a hallway ceiling light about 2 ft away from the access point,,,can I tap into this light to get power for the access point? If so, how would I go about doing it?

thanks a bunch Newbie, Ajju

[RBM]

There may only be power at the light when it is turned on. If you take down the fixture and find more than two wires in the ceiling box, it is possible you have a feed in the box, which could be tapped for an outlet.

[Colbyt]

But where are you going to install the duplex receptable. And I have never been in a house with a power supply hanging from the ceiling? Nor a router either for that matter.

[RBM]

There's a first time for everything. If he's got enough LED's on the WAP he could just swap it for the fixture

[RBM]

I think the best solution, if you haven't already purchased your WAP is to get one with (POE) as they don't require a plug in transformer

[Ajju]

Well, the hole in the ceiling where the RJ45 is coming from can be slightly expanded and the receptacle can be placed hidden in the ceiling. The access point will cover the whole when mounted...The access point hanging from the ceiling is a first but it's the best place for full coverage.

[Ajju]

I actually looked for a POE adapter for my WAP but there isn't one available for my model. I like the WAP i have and would rather try and get power for it than get a new WAP.

[Ajju]

Thanks! I'll take a look and see what i find...

A.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, First, you better hope you can tap a constant power from that ceiling fixture. It depends how it is wired. Or you have to keep the fixture switched on all the time. Or you can modifiy the wiring bypassing the switch. But it depends whether you need the light or not. There are many possibilities. There is a way where there is a will. Nothing is impossible. Good luck and don't get zapped. Tony

[Skyhawk]

at the ceiling... might be difficult to troubleshoot, if there is a need to work on the device in winter.

[Brian V]

Why not just get a PoE (power over ethernet) access point? All the Cisco ones accept PoE...

[philkryder]

should work just fine - And when your ISP asks you to "recycle the access point" you can just hit the switch.

Don't forget that there are "radio activated" outlets.

You could (if needed) bypass the on-off switch so that the new recepticle is "always on". Then plug the ceiling light into the new recepticle through one of the wireless adapters.

This would give you:

1) Continuous to the WAP 2) switchable ceiling light

good luck! Phil

[buffalobill]

see also:

[Bill Kearney]

Use Power-Over-Ethernet instead. That way you supply power to the access point over the Cat-5 cable instead. Many Wifi access points support POE but you'd do well to check before you buy. Don't bother trying to stuff the power supply wall wart up into the ceiling.

[Daremo]

You'd have to have a router/switch that sends POE, not just every cheapo router will send the power over the cable.

Daremo

[Brian V]

Daremo,

You do NOT need a PoE switch or router....those are typically used in a comercial environment for mass quantities of PoE devices (ie phones, ap's etc). For a single installation like this you would use a power injector, available from many manufacturers including Linksys and Netgear. Heck, you could even make your own!

-Brian

[Mark Lloyd]

The first thing a web search found.