Help with an outdoor Ethernet run

[PenguinMaster]

Hi all,

 

I need help planning an outdoor run for a UniFi Access point.  It is going to be on the side of my deck in the backyard.  I am planning on running a direct burial ethernet cable 18" below grade parallel to the 240V power for the hot tub (which will be run inside a PVC conduit) On the side of the house there is a PoE switch which powers PoE cameras that I am planning to pull from.  What I am worried about is the possibility of a lightning strike hitting the ethernet cable in the ground.  There are not many trees around, but with a hot tub full of water near the access point I figured it could be a possibility.  I would run fiber to the access point, but that would mean I would need to put an additional power outlet on the deck to power the converter which would not make much sense since the outlets near the house are only about 30 feet away and because of how expensive wire currently is.  The way around this that I thought of is to put an ethernet to fiber converter behind the PoE switch.

 

In essence this is how it would go:

 

Main Switch in Rack --->   Ethernet to Fiber Converter --->   Fiber to Ethernet Converter --->   PoE Switch --->   Direct Burial Ethernet Cable --->   WiFi Access point

 

The Fiber would isolate the outdoor devices from the indoor which would limit the chances of anything in the rack or connected to ethernet from being damaged during a lightning strike.

 

The only problem I see is the Fiber converters would be plugged into the same UPS as the outdoor PoE switch.  I am not sure if that defeats the whole point or if that does not matter?

 

Total run is about 125ft long from the orange to the purple in the map.

 

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

 

[Zando_]

Would a better option not be to just put an AP on the side of the house pointing towards the deck? Ubiquiti makes big flat APs for this exact purpose, IT contractor I work with sometimes got one and IIRC he could get crisp signal like 1/4 mile from his house when he put it on full blast. I believe it was this: https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-network-wireless/products/unifi-wifi-basestation-xg. They are expensive (and as usual currently out of stock), but depending on the cost of cable + your time (and possibly equipment, IDK how you intend to dig the trench) it could end up a similar price or cheaper. 

[Bdavis]

Ubiquiti sells a surge suppressor that you connect to ground to help protect your equipment. I believe it's about $15. They recommend them for their ptp products.