WIFI Extender

bigmck · 06 Apr 2016

There is a restaurant I go to which has WIFI. I always take my laptop. There is a better restaurant about 100 yards away but no WIFI. The WIFI will not reach from Restaurant A to Restaurant B. I usually park in between the two restaurants. I thought if I got a WIFI Extender and put it in my car, charged it with a USB plug in my cigarette lighter, I would have WIFI at Restaurant B. Two questions, this is my first experience with a WIFI Extender, have any of you used one and does my plan sound like it would work? Just reassure me that the WIFI Extender would not run down my battery for a couple hours use. --- One more thing, I have not found a WIFI Extender that uses a USB Plug, I assume there is a such thing. Does anyone know for a fact if there is a such thing? Thanks,

Digital Life · 06 Apr 2016

It would work but unless you buy one with more than one radio in it will be slower than molasses. An older router cheap router would use the same radio to transmit and receive to both PC in one restaurant to the router in the other restaurant.

Now if connection in restaurant B is less that 1MB and restaurant A is more than 5MB even with a cheap extender it might be faster to use the extender.

As for killing your car battery the best way to find out is to break out the calculator and do the math but most routers I have seen use less that an amp @ 9~12 volt Wall wart so unless your going to be there for 8 hours I would not worry, Also I would not worry about going from 9 to 13.5 volts because wall warts have terrible voltage regulators in them

If you end up with a $300 dollar router extender I would probably pay the $10 or $20 bucks for a proper voltage regulated cigarette lighter adapter.

bigmck · 06 Apr 2016

Thanks for the Tips. It is kind of fun to do this. I just have to look a bit harder and fine a USB Extender. It is a challenge.

Digital Life · 06 Apr 2016

I sounds like a fun little experiment.

Also if you loose your internet you will know right away that someone just stole your car.

TrustMe · 06 Apr 2016

Instead of looking for a wifi extender that is powered by a USB plug you can buy an inverter that plugs into your cigarette lighter. Just get one with enough amps to power the wifi extender. This is an example.

TrippLite PowerVerter Ultra-Compact Inverter with 1 AC Outlet : Computer Accessories | Dell

Post back if you get it working

Digital Life · 07 Apr 2016

TrustMe said:

Instead of looking for a wifi extender that is powered by a USB plug you can buy an inverter that plugs into your cigarette lighter. Just get one with enough amps to power the wifi extender. This is an example.

TrippLite PowerVerter Ultra-Compact Inverter with 1 AC Outlet : Computer Accessories | Dell

Post back if you get it working

That's terribly inefficient why would someone want to convert 12 volts to 120 volts to make 12 volts. I would be worried about restarting my car after half an hour doing it that way. That setup would use closer to 10 amps instead of 1

Source:
https://www.batterystuff.com/kb/tool...-inverter.html

Best bet is to buy a voltage regulator that converts battery voltage to 9 or 12 volts that would only draw 1 amp

Digital Life · 07 Apr 2016

One more thing, I have not found a WIFI Extender that uses a USB Plug, I assume there is a such thing. Does anyone know for a fact if there is a such thing? Thanks,

I know you could find one but any extender made for home use runs on 9~12 volts DC power and can easily be powered by the car battery even without a voltage regulator and premade cigarette lighter adapters can be bought 1 or 2 dollars or a regulated one for about $10.00

Also I would look for a good WiFi router that is capable of being an WiFi extender, That way you could also drag it in the house and use it for either purpose.

bigmck · 15 Apr 2016

OK guys, I am back with my solution for the Wifi. I bought this Wifi extender on Ebay. Bearextender PC USB WiFi Booster and Range Extender for Microsoft Windows | eBay It is about as big as a pack of cigarettes and plugs into the USB on my PC. It greatly increases the distance I can pickup Wifi. It works great and only $28.

TrustMe · 16 Apr 2016

Have you tried using the wifi extender to reach restaurant B? Did it work?

bigmck · 17 Apr 2016

TrustMe said:

Have you tried using the wifi extender to reach restaurant B? Did it work?

Hi -- I am at the restaurant without Wifi now. I am able to pickup all kinds of networks. I am on the Nissan car dealership network now. There are a lot of networks that I can pickup. Strangely the restaurant that has the wifi, I can not pickup. It just must be very weak. As long as I have one network, that is all that matters. Thanks for the follow up.