Power and a connection at the far end in Aldie, Virginia

All work is low-voltage (under 50 V DC). No line-voltage electrical work is performed.
Perimeter Surveillance Upgrades: Coming Soon (awaiting Virginia DCJS licensure)

Camera work is not part of any job booked here right now. The Virginia DCJS Electronic Security Business certification is in progress; this notice changes the day it is issued.

No video feeds are offered or installed today.

The hard part of a far position is almost never the device. It is having power and a network connection out there at all. Heron Networks LLC solves that two ways around Aldie: a wireless link where the far building has its own outlet, or one buried Power-over-Ethernet run that carries both data and power when it does not. Either way the load is measured against what the equipment really draws, and a battery buffer keeps the position alive through an outage.

Start the Perimeter Upgrade Calculator

First question: does the far end already have an outlet?

If the barn, shed or outbuilding you want covered has a working outlet and you can see it from the house, you do not need a trench at all. The job is a pair of radios, one at each end, aimed and linked, with surge protection at each radio and building entry. It is one visit, no digging, and nothing in it waits on a licence.

If the far end has no power -- a post at the end of a driveway, a gate pillar, a corner of a field -- then the buried run below is the answer, because one cable can carry the network connection and the power together.

The calculator asks which case you are in before it asks anything else, and tells you if your site qualifies for neither. Horse and livestock properties around Aldie are mostly the first case: Loudoun County's 2022 Census of Agriculture counts 1,332 farms and 4,898 horses and ponies across the county, and a barn with an outlet is the normal starting point.

One cable, data and power

In the house, a Ubiquiti U-POE++ adapter (a 60 W UniFi PoE++ adapter) puts power onto the network cable. At the gate, a PoE Texas GAT-12V25W splitter takes the PoE+ input and delivers 12 V DC at up to 25 W, along with the network connection, to the equipment there.

The power budget, using the usable number

The PoE standards publish two numbers, and only one of them matters at the gate. PoE+ (802.3at) supplies up to 30 W at the source but only about 25.5 W reaches the device after cable loss. Older 802.3af supplies 15.4 W, of which about 12.95 W arrives.

The calculator's power budget check adds your gate operator's standby draw to the Shelly Plus Uni's draw and compares the total with the 25.5 W usable figure, not the 30 W source figure. It shows the margin, positive or negative, so you can see whether it fits.

Battery buffer sizing you can check yourself

At the gate we mount two Dakota Lithium DL12V10AH LiFePO4 batteries wired in parallel. How long they last depends on the load. The calculator uses the standard runtime formula: battery Ah × 12.8 V nominal × depth of discharge × system efficiency ÷ load in watts. It works that formula backwards to show the amp-hours needed for the backup hours you want, with every input on screen.

Cold weather and battery aging both reduce real runtime, so treat the result as a planning number and leave headroom.

Burying the cable in Aldie

Aldie is an unincorporated village in Loudoun County, and its 2020 population is 70 -- the properties are the farms and large parcels around it, not the village. Wherever the far position is, the cable crosses ground that sees vehicles, mowers and animals. Cable-maker guidance we reviewed still recommends conduit even for direct-burial-rated cable, because bare cable is more exposed to chewing, shifting soil and slow jacket damage. Our default is direct-burial-rated, shielded Cat6 inside conduit.

Before any trench or post hole is opened we call Virginia 811 to have utility lines marked. That call is free, it is required by law, and it is ours to make.

How a job goes

  1. Run the Perimeter Upgrade Calculator and add two line-of-sight photos.
  2. Your job is vetted on technical scope only.
  3. If it fits, pay the $400 refundable deposit (see the deposit terms).
  4. Buy the parts through the Procurement Hub and upload your receipt.
  5. Once the receipt is verified, tell us when you are free and we confirm a time.

Frequently asked questions

My barn already has an outlet. Do you still need to dig?

No. With an outlet at the far end and line of sight from the house, the job is a wireless link between a pair of radios and there is no trench. The buried run is for a position that has no power of its own.

How much power reaches the gate over PoE+?

About 25.5 W usable at the device from an 802.3at source, and the GAT-12V25W delivers 12 V DC at up to 25 W. The calculator checks your gate-side load against that.

What batteries do you install at the gate?

Two Dakota Lithium DL12V10AH LiFePO4 batteries in parallel, which you buy through the Procurement Hub. The calculator's battery sizing shows how long they cover your load.

Is the cable buried directly in the ground?

Our default is direct-burial-rated shielded Cat6 inside conduit, because conduit protects the run from rodents, soil movement and vehicle loads.

Do you do any line-voltage wiring for the power?

No. All of our work is low-voltage, under 50 V DC. We perform no line-voltage electrical work.

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