WS-8-250A Early Impressions

[nelson05]

Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Mine was made even better by being fortunate enough to have Chris send me out an engineering sample of the 8-Port version of the WISP Switch. I have had a ToughSwitch Pro in a 14X12X7 enclosure for about a year and things got really tight inside when I added two AirFiber 24 links and the associated power cords, power injectors and patch cables.

Well, I am happy to report this particular box is now MUCH cleaner. Dropped the WISP Switch in without a hitch late yesterday evening and things have been running great since. As I mentioned, this unit is powering two different AirFiber24 links and is chugging right along- its so nice to be able to see power consumption per port. The form factor is very close to the ToughSwitch Pro so any of you that are planning on installing one in cramped quarters like me where you already have a ToughSwitch, can rest easy. In fact, while the WISP switch is slightly wider, the chassis design I had features the power connector on the same side as the Ethernet ports, so the amount of effective space it requires is less.

Additionally, the ToughSwitch it replaced would get very hot at times during the summer so we are feeling good about having a high quality fan to actively cool the unit. Being able to keep an eye on the temperature remotely through the interface is also a big plus over the ToughSwitch.

Well done! We have six of the WISP Switches deployed throughout our network and couldn't be more pleased. Very much looking forward to replacing the last of our ToughSwitches!

On a semi-related topic, which maybe should be a separate post:

Glad to hear the DC Powered units are not too far away. We have a number of relay sites on the roofs of several residential customers with homes on top of strategic hills where we currently feed ToughSwitch 5s in combination with Tycon high power Ethernet Power Injectors/Battery Chargers. We hope the DC powered WISP Switches will allow us to achieve something similar- one CAT 5e/6 line running from inside the subscriber home to an outdoor enclosure with a charger fed by POE (and a small solar panel) that maintains a small battery bank and powers the switch, which in turn, powers the radios. Allows for very clean installs and some really flexible deployments. Haven't done one of these to power an AirFiber yet... is it feasible with one POE line from the inside to push enough juice to power the DC Powered WISP Switch, an AirFiber, and four or five Rockets? It sounds like you are planning on doing something similar with the Tower Switch, but that would obviously be overkill and not a good fit for this application.

If anyone can do it, it would be you and with what we have seen from the WISP Switches so far, we think this will be a killer combination. Please don't forget to give us a couple of voltage monitoring options. Being able to monitor the line voltage coming from the POE line as well as the battery bank voltage on the WISP Switch would be perfect. Then we would know if we had a problem with the power source and be able to respond proactively before the small battery bank was depleted.

[sirhc]

I am glad you like the switch!

I wish I would have reminded you to take before and after pics.

We are planning a MINI 5 port that can plug into a 48VH port using 1 of the 5 ports as the POE up link port. This mini will come with an optional outdoor chassis to mount directly on a pole or such similar to the Tycoon switch but it will be a smart switch capable of powering 24 or 48V radios. We will also sale a POE injector for it if you are using it in a situation like this so the POE injector would be installed in the customer house so they can plug their internal network into it as well as power the switch on the roof.

All of our DC versions of switches will monitor DC input voltages and current draw as well as individual voltage and current draws to devices that they power.

I am not sure if it will be possible to also power at least 1 AF radio from the mini switch, we will have to decide how much power we can push up that wire. One option would be that we sell a special heavier grade CAT5e wire that is a heavier gauge. Since we will soon start selling out own cable this is a possibility.

I just got off the phone from a customer who had ordered some Edge Switches and WISP switches in to evaluate and I am pleased to say that he said he was returning the Edge Switches and placing an order for 500 WISP Switches! He likes the idea that ours run in such warm environments and are quite as he is located on an island in the South Pacific and it is so warm there that he is constantly replacing AF24 and AF5 POE bricks that fail in the heat.

People have to understand that we went into this project with HEAT squarely on our mind. Our switch core chipsets are rated to 125C dye temperature with an ambient chassis temperature of up to 85C. Our power supplies are rated up to 50C before entering their de-rating curve based on convection cooling but we provide forced air cooling.

We are working on many different NEW things which I think you guys will LOVE because the ideas came from me (a WISP) and or your requests over the years which I wrote down, all we need to do is raise the cash to build them. We will never adopt the attitude that we know more about what you need then you know what you want!

We greatly appreciate all your support and patience as well as your input.

We are gearing up to build 1,000 switches per month in January, I hope that number ends up thinking too small but I could live happily on that volume as I do not aspire to own a franchise team or jet around in a private jet but if you guys do provide that I will be happy just being the manufacturer that makes gear for WISP's, we are not interested in making anything else, stay focused and just be the BEST at what we want to do!

[nelson05]

Yeah, it was dark as I did the change late last night and remembered after the WISP Switch was in place to get the after picture though it didn't turn out quite as well as I would have liked with the angle and flash. Missed the before picture though. However, even now, the damn box doesn't compare to some of the works of art I have seen posted by others in terms of mounting, organization, and cable management but rest assured that it is much better than it was before the WISP Switch.

Great news on what the pipeline looks like. Love the idea on selling cable with a heavier gauge for these types of scenarios. That would be the ticket for us, or for those of us that already have multiple cables, running in parallel, how about allowing us to double up to increase the effective gauge.

Again, glad to hear things sound like they are coming together after a ton of work. You guys deserve it.

And regarding the DC voltage monitoring... add one more input to monitor independently please. In the case of the battery bank fed in a scenario similar to what I mentioned, it would be nice to be able to see the charging input drop independently of the bank itself, that way you could dispatch and respond immediately.... not wait until the bank voltage falls to a LOW level.

[nelson05]

Also, on the MINI 5-port switch.. when you say it is smart, will it have the same interface/features as the other switches? Awesome to hear it will be ready to go and mount outside!

[wayneorack]

And regarding the DC voltage monitoring... add one more input to monitor independently please. In the case of the battery bank fed in a scenario similar to what I mentioned, it would be nice to be able to see the charging input drop independently of the bank itself, that way you could dispatch and respond immediately.... not wait until the bank voltage falls to a LOW level.

Yes! Please do that. This would allow me to remove 1 (or more) pieces of equipment from cabinets.

[sirhc]

I am not sure I understand?

We do monitor DC voltage and current into the switch from the batteries and allow that voltage and current to be monitored via SNMP plus allows configurable SMTP alerts.

You should be able to determine when and how often your charger is running because during the time the charger is running you should notice a higher DC voltage coming into the switch?

As well our switches will allow any input range of 9 to 60 V DC so if your batteries drop to a level too low for your comfort you know to dispatch someone.

[lligetfa]

Since the charge current would be external to the switch, the switch would only be able to see the voltage and you would need to deduce from the voltage whether the battery was charging or depleting. Then your SNMP monitor would need the smarts to know when to alert you.

The only way the switch could measure charge current was if the wire from the charger went through an internal or external current loop sensor similar to the mFi-CS and analyzed it.

[sirhc]

Sorry Les I worded that WRONG!

Was just trying to say we monitor BOTH but yes voltage is the one that you would use to determine it but also if you notice a voltage increase but your current draw is the same this indicates a charge is in progress.

But if your input current drops then the input voltage would increase as well but not indicate a charger is active.

You would want to script your criteria to make sure your current draw remains the same when voltage increases to insure a charge event is in progress.

[jjonsson]

The form factor is very close to the ToughSwitch Pro so any of you that are planning on installing one in cramped quarters like me where you already have a ToughSwitch, can rest easy

I'm really really looking forward to this switch. Please ship to Europe immediately!