xEM AC upgrade possibilities

Awesome! Now I know what I am doing on this long weekend :wink:

Sorta have it like that now but was trying to think of a way the box will not even be visible from in the garage. If I can put it all up in the attic the only thing visible will be the wire running down the wall and out the wall.

Drywall? Put it inside the wall.

Or inside some simple container in that general area. Something that looks like it belongs.

1 Like

1.2m to 1.5m…Wow that is quite long.
Let me find a post that may give you some idea of what to expect with degradation

1 Like

This. If you cant hide it out of sight, hide it in plain sight!

3 Likes

Okay, I found it, Follow the link to get the whole situation, But in short
TomHarkness ( The Guru :person_in_lotus_position:‍♂) took an xAC antenna and connected it to a Proxmark Easy, not the same, but you will see he talks about the tuning. Your case will be slightly different because you are extending for what it is tuned for… blah blah blah
Again follow the link for pictures,
anyway

1 Like

The garage door sliders are too close to the wall and I wont be able to cut it open and patch it nicely. (already thought of that lol)

Last thought.

They make access panels for drywall. They’re usually installed someplace where you might need to get at the plumbing. For instance, on the outside of the wall of a shower stall, so you can get to the backside of the valve.

They come in a huge variety of sizes and styles, are designed to blend in, and are cheap and available at any home improvement store.

2 Likes

I LIVE, I HUNGER, I AM SATUR9!

Nah but 4realz, 4-5 feet is alot for an antenna extension. It affects the impedance significantly. I’m not sure what exactly you’re doing here, @Steven1727. Do you want the reader to be in your attic and unlock your garage door and start your Harley in your garage in one fell swipe?

3 Likes

Not to mention that if yoy did want to add that much and keep a similar impedance the cost of the extension would cost half the bike!

Seriously high quality coax is really expensive!

I think he originally asked about fitting to the Harley but mentioned he could do with extending the garage one as well

3 Likes

Does this really play into effect? HDMI cables can be made of gold, doesn’t mean it will work.

Wouldn’t you need a way to amplify and power it?

1 Like

Oh hell yeah, the difference with coax cable is astronomical when you talk about rf (TBH probably not too much at this frequecey considering the joint between the different coax portions will be awful from a loss perspective)

At several MHz your loss between 2 cables can vary by 20db.

1 Like

High quality AV cables are a racket because the viewing/listening device itself needs to be expensive enough to process the difference in signal quality (which they seldom are) and in the end our shitty sensory organs can’t tell the difference anyway.

When you’re talking RF communication between two processors, signal quality does make a significant difference. It can be the difference between a 1 and a 0. We’re not just talking about the metal that the signal is being transmitted over (although that does play a part). There’s also the distance between the signal wire and the grounding jacket, and the dielectric properties of the material between the two, which affects the capacitance of the signal channel. Then there’s any Inductance or resistance introduced by the length of the wire and the interface between the wire and the connectors. All of these factors affect impedance, which can create signal reflections or distortions depending on frequency. The maximum length of the signal wire is also affected by the rise time of the signal.

4 Likes

Hehe, I couldnt be bothered to explain all that (I’m supposed to be working) but had a feeling you would bite @Satur9 :wink:

5 Likes

Original question was about the Harley yes. I can make the garage work just figured if I could extend it it would look nicer being hidden in the attic with just the antenna coming down.

Here is my idea: blue circle is where the battery and fuse panel are, red circle is general area where I would like to put the antenna. On bikes most of the wires are ran down the frame under the gas tank, I was hoping I could do the same with this. But if it’s going to really hurt the performance of the antenna I can try to find another place to put it.

20200519_102719

1 Like

I’d say it’s worth a try. Desolder the antenna wires from the board inside the xAC and splice on an extension, see if it still works

4 Likes

Give it a go, I’ve done and seen worse done, just make sure to use coax or at the very least shilded wire.

4 Likes

+1 on using good quality coax.

You might lose a bit of read range, but I’m guessing it’ll still work. The xAC has such insane range that I suspect you’ll still be fine

1 Like

I was curious, so i checked.

I just picked the smallest dia coax cable at digikey, in the shortest spool (25’), and it prices out as 61.89 plus shipping.

Check It Out.

1 Like

And they have to in stock :+1: