Weird, I heard a vacuum cleaner going downstair, and I got disconnected
from my wireless connection. Is this common? I never heard of vacuum
cleaners interferring with wireless devices.

Thank you in advance. :)
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<ANT***@zimage.com> wrote in message
of accident sometimes collects in a moment." --Friedrich von Schiller
Vacuum cleaners can induce noise into the 120vac system, which in turn can
affect anything on the
same circuit or power system. It is due to arcing of noisey motor brushes. I
had a vacuum cleaner
blow circuit cards in an IBM check processor. It most likely has nothing to
do with wireless
and everything to do with power. An  AC noise filter may help.

cheers
airhead

Airhead <campb***@alliancecable.net> wrote:

Show quoteHide quoteEven if the vaccum cleaner and wireless router are not even close to each
other? It is not like in the same room or downstair. It is like next
door.
-- 
"What reason, like the careful ant, draws laboriously together, the wind of accident sometimes collects in a moment." --Friedrich von Schiller
  /\___/\                                                   
/ /\ /\ \                      Ant @ The Ant Farm: http://antfarm.ma.cx
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Any arcing can also generate RF interference, which can use the power
leads of the motor and appliance as antennas.

On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 18:28:10 -0600, ANT***@zimage.com wrote:

Well, that sucks.  (Sorry, I couldn't resist).

The arcing from the motor is a nice spark gap transmitter with
harmonics well into the microwave region.  I can kill my wireless
802.11b connection with a nearby electric shaver or AC powered
electric drill.  The motor speed has to be just right, but it works
and is repeatable. 

Others have mentioned AC power line conducted interference.  This is
possible but the effect is probably not the same.  In this case, the
motor noise is being conducted by the AC wiring, goes through the wall
wart power supply, and gets into the access point circuitry.  The
isolation of the older transformer type wall warts is fairly good, but
not perfect.  If the access point is sensitive to power supply noise,
communications may be affected.

Another possibility is line voltage sag.  If the house wiring is
really marginal, it might be possible to reduce the AC voltage to the
point where your unspecified model access point no longer operates.
Methinks this is a stretch as you would also be seeing all manner of
other appliances doing weird things.

I good way to test this is to fire up the site survey or signal
quality tool on your unspecified client radio.  It should give a
signal strength and either a noise level or S/N ratio reading.  If RF
noise is the problem, you will see no change in signal level, but a
drastic increase in noise level, or a drastic decrease in S/N ratio.
However, if your unspecified access point is failing due to voltage
problems, the signal level will also probably (not sure) decrease.  If
your client radio do not have these monitoring features, you can use
Netstumbler on a laptop to extract them.

ANT***@zimage.com wrote:
The vacuum would have to putting out some RF. What was the model? Maybe
it was a robot vacuum......Did you try to repeat the problem?

Dave

Dave Wendling wrote:

Uh, if it has a motor, it will generate some RFI.  If the motor is
brushless and everything works OK, then the RFI should be small; if the
motor is an older style with brushes, then the RFI can be kinda ugly.

In addition to radiated energy, the vacuum cleaner will also produce
some conducted energy.  That won't matter if all wireless widgets are
running from batteries, but if either the laptop (I'm guessing) or
the router (I'm guessing again) are plugged into an AC outlet, then
conducted RFI could cause problems.

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