WS-12-250 DC PoE capability and UBIQUITI products

[krolly]

Hi All,

First off all my apologize for some mistakes or misunderstandings but English is not my mother language and it might be a bit long but I generally feel that the most precise and detailed we are the better chance we get to be provided with a quick and good analysis and the more helpful it'll be for other viewers !

Before posting here, I've red lots of threads carefully and it has been very helpful to understand the general use of NETONIX devices and especially the endless subject of the PoE, which the point interesting me mostly in my situation.

SITUATION & GOAL

- We're a WISP in Central Africa and we decided few weeks ago to cross connect with a GSM operator in order to use their national backbone especially in very remote areas where there are only radio links (you can imagine how tough the environment is around there, only GSM added value can afford to maintain such sites as a WISP we can only share and we're grateful for this by the way) in order to supply specific customers.

- Those sites being far away, and power being a real issue (we can stand with 24h outage after a huge storm) the operator invested in full 48V batteries which makes it much more secure and stable. The side consequence is that all our equipment are either CISCO or UBIQUITI and that we're only on 220V ...... or passive PoE which we never used.

- We thought about powering our UBIQUITI products on site through a single device which can be powered itself through a 48V DC input and then make a sort of "port mirroring" between the PoE Port NETONIX <> UBIQUTI radio device and between the LAN PORT NETONIX <> SWITCH CISCO L3 PORT (same as image on the page 15 https://www.netonix.com/media/wysiwyg/ws-specsheet.pdf except that the EDGEROUTEUR is replaced by a CISCO SWITCH L3 instead).

The GOAL here is to use the NETONIX only for PoE purpose (and remote power cycle capabilities) and leave it totally transparent to transfer the full trafic to the CISCO SWITCH L3 since all the trafic will be managed at this level in each used POP. I can hear from here that I could use NETONIX for the full purpose and that there are no need to jump on a CISCO L3 but I mean you know how it works, very hard to convince top management that CISCO is for sure performant but that for what we're using (VLAN, IPSEC, OSPF and basic uses) lots of new players can do the same for half the price....at least !

SUGGESTIONS & WHAT I PLAN TO DO

Please note that although everyone contribution I've red has been highly appreciated and helpful, @sirhc with this particular post viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1178#p8809 really helped me to get all the box in the right place in my understanding (almost otherwise you wouldn't read me :) )

- I'll use on each site 1 x AF5XHD or 1 x AF11X (not everywhere but I'll consider the possibility) + 3 x AIRMAX PTMP + 1 x NETONIX WS-12-250-DC

- I'll connect the +48 VDC source to the NETONIX WS-12-250-DC

- I'll connect the AF5XHD to the NETONIX with a 24VH option (only because I'm on X series otherwise it would be exclusively 24V) or with the 48VH option if I'm installing a AF11X (Again because I'm on the X Series)

- I'll connect the AIRMAX devices to the NETONIX with 24V option

- I'll link each PoE port to a LAN port on the NETONIX and forward trafic of each port to a port on the CISCO SWITCH L3 depending on the VLAN group

- I'll activate POE Smart and Cross short diagnostic options to prevent (most of the time) port frying

QUESTIONS

1°) Am I correct on the different voltage configuration ?

2°) Regarding the cables if I have well understood I need to be very careful to NEVER cross the cables and respect the T568A or T568B color code even though this is more for the standard respect since I could as well choose any color per pins as far as it is the same pin color on both end of the cable ?

3°) NEVER activate PoE on the NETONIX and plug the cable then (understood with the device connected on the other end). Always plug the cable with the device connected first and activate then the PoE on the NETONIX port checking first 2°) is respected and that PoE Smart and Cross Short options are activated which will verify and prevent the best it can that there is no misconfiguration and that there will be no hardware damages.

4°) With some brands (like CAMBIUM) the PoE Smart might block power input in the device and needs to be unchecked but UBIQUITI don't have this issue, at least not known.

5°) I'll never use more than what I've described previously so if I refer to the datasheets this makes on maximum (36W for the AF11X + 3 x 9W for the AIRMAX which is 63W + NETONIX itself consumption +/- 10W which makes a total of 73W.
If this is correct knowing that I'm having 48V DC source I need to install a 2A circuit breaker assuming in that case that I'll need to be extremely careful to NEVER plug other devices and risk to use more power which the NETONIX will be able to deliver since it can deliver up to a total of 250W on maximum and this would "break" the circuit breaker.

6°) I totally understood that the NETONIX is not 802.3af or 802.3at compliant, however I'm looking to make it the more simple possible for the field guys as skills can vary greatly from a guy to an other.
Focusing only on the 24V devices (AIRMAX series), instead of selecting the 24V voltage PoE on the NETONIX, could we imagine to use PoE 802.3af converter (https://dl.ubnt.com/datasheets/instant/ ... ers_DS.pdf) ? In this case we could select the 48V on the NETONIX port connected to this 802.3af converter which will then deliver the 24V@0,5A the AIRMAX is requesting.
Off course there is no auto negociation since it is not real 802.3af but would it work ? If it does, I could then decide configure also to setup only 48V as a standard (and no more 48VH for the X series) since the cable distance will NEVER be more than 30 meters. Last but not least this option will offer me an additional +-15Kv surge protection.

7°) Is there any special configuration I'd need to be aware off to "port mirror" the PoE NETONIX port with the LAN NETONIX port to connect to the CISCO SWITCH L3 ? Keeping in mind that I need it to be totally transparent and use only the PoE capabilities off the NETONIX SWITCH.

8°) Just the confirmation that on each port I can choose to get it non PoE since on the links between the NETONIX and the SWITCH CISCO L3 it needs to be exclusively DATA otherwise it'll be damaged.


Thanks for anyone who will answer me back and sorry for this long post but I want to be sure everything is well understood before purchasing.

[scracha]

1) Yes. The AF5X / AF5XHD seem to handle 24V (short cable runs), 24VH, 48V and 48VH. *there are a few early AF5X that only handle 24V/VH but their MAC addresses are on the UBNT site
2) Yes
3) Yes, or switch of everything, plug in the cables then boot up the netonix. Note...it doesn't always stop things frying though and it doesn't always isolate the issue to that port either. Best to test with a cable tester/and or normal POE brick first.
4) Yes
5) I'd go 4A myself incase I wanted to add more radios. Airmax AC radios under load can use over 14W (I've got Airmax M using > 10W too)
6) I don't know. Just something else to go wrong.
7) I don't know.
8) Yes.

[krolly]

Hi Scracha,

Thanks for your feedback at least there are some points already cleared off, especially the 5) related to the circuit breaker !

Is there any other NETONIX regular user to answer me on points 6°) and 7°) ? Those are quit important also for the BoM I'm finalizing.

Many Thanks

[sakita]

#6 - Those converters are designed to convert from 802.3af to 24V. The Netonix switch doesn't put out 802.3af power. So, I don't even know if they'll work with the Netonix 48V output (maybe this has been discussed on Ubiquiti's forums?). Even if they did work that is yet another thing to break, like Sracha said. Why not just standardize on 24V? There's always the concern about proper procedures and training but adding complexity may not help with reliability. BTW, the next generation Netonix switches have active overcurrent protection which will help greatly with protecting ports from damage related to passive PoE.

#7 - I think what you are looking for is in the examples under this post: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=237 sirhc has shared a lot of his WISPs experiences and setups in this and other posts.