Single powerpoint - What to do?

I have just purchased 4 wd livewire units (2 boxes of 2 units) only to find out it says you cannot plug them into a powerboard.

The rooms I wish to use these in have only single powerpoints.

Is there another solution such as a double adapter?

It is a rented house, so I do not have the luxury of being allowed to change the powerpoints to doubles.

I am surprised that WD has not chosen to put a plug on the unit that allows another plug or powerboard to be plugged into it so that the Livewire device is plugged in first.

Anyway, any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Regards,

Bill

What do you mean by single powerpoint?  Do you mean that each room only has one wall outlet with a single plug?

Yep, one wall outlet with one plug. Just for anyone viewing this, my experience is based in Australia.

I have found a solution, even though I was told it would not work it does.

I went to K-mart out of desperation and purchashed a double adapter ( I specifically found one that went directly in and out of the powerpoint. ie. not one of those that plugs in and has 2 outlets at 45 degree angles to the powerpoint. This probably makes no difference, but I am not sure. The double adapter also does not appear to have any sort of additional surge protection or wiring like a powerboard might have as the Livewire instructions say not run this through a powerboard).

I then plugged the double adapter into the wall and plugged the Livewire into the socket that plugs directly into the wall (On this adapter it is the socket shown at the bottom of the photo or the rounded end of the adapter). The other end of the adapter (the square or rectangular end at the top of the photo) was used to plug in the powerboard which the computer and other electrical appliances run off. The black plug is the Livewire and the white plug is the powerboard.

This solution has worked fine for me and Internet is just as quick as it would be plugged directly into the broadband router.

Just to give an overall picture I have 2 computers in different rooms and a broadband router in a third room and all WD Livewire devices are operating off double adapters setup as shown in the above photo’s.

The intial reason for purchasing Livewire was that wireless was not reaching the 2 rooms with the computers.

This is only my experience and people are welcome to add their own thoughts and experiences.

Also can I make a recommendation to WD if they read these boards.

  1. Not until the customer purchases and arrives home do they find a sticker that says this product cannot be used with a powerboard. Could this warning also be placed on the outside of the box along with possibly a green tick showing either direct wall plug or double adapter if they agree with my experience that this product will work correctly in the manner I have set it up.
  2. Houses in Australia (perhaps everywhere) usually run 2 main power circuits. It would be advisable that people turn off power on one of these circuits to ensure that all the powerpoints they intend using to network are actually on the same circuit, because although I have not tested it, WD assure me that devices plugged into different circuits will not be able to see each other (Luckily the 3 rooms I used were all on the same circuit). Maybe there is another workaround for this issue and someone else can comment on it.
  3. Is it possible to ensure that wholesalers are given something to give to their retailers to ensure correct training of these known issues?

This might even be worthy as a sticky on this board?

GonetoPilbara,

 Thank you very much for your solution.

 Living in Thailand presents the same type of problem and this gives me an alternative if the `wireless’ installation has problems …

 wallyc