A suggestion for a tx enhancement - PoE...

[austindave]

RJ, et al,

I have a suggestion for a (future) enhancement to the wireless Tx... A Power over Ethernet option.

I'd like to mount the transmitter unit under the eave at the front of my house & run a cat5 cable to it from inside the house where the PC & USB dongle will sit (the cat5 cable would be a permanent through-wall installation). It would be much easier & neater to provide the power to the Tx through the ethernet cable. When I'm setting up the display, I'd just plug in a single cat5 cable between the jack mounted under the eave & the Tx unit (rather than having to mount the Tx power brick near the unit, run a power cable to it, etc). Of course, on the inside of the house, I'd need an adapter cable (or a specially-wired wall jack) to inject the power, but that's pretty simple (and maybe a coop opportunity).

As I said above, this would greatly simplify & neaten my transmitter installation, while providing protection to the wall wart by keeping it inside the house with the computer & dongle.

The only downside (I can see) to doing this is the possibility that the wall wart would be attached directly to the Tx unit and back-feed the cat5 cable - depending on what the cat5 was connected to, it might short out the power supply. I think this could be overcome simply by placing a diode in series with the cat5 power feed in the Tx unit.

Anyway, just a suggestion for a future enhancement - humbly submitted for your consideration.

--Dave

[n1ist]

You could always make an adapter for each end of the cable that picks up the two pairs that aren't used for DMX and brings them out to power connectors.  Then you could place the wallwart down by the PC instead,
/mike

[tbone321]

That sounds like a great idea and I think that I will make that mod to my transmitters when I get them.  I was having a hard time determining where to place the wall warts in a few locations and this idea solves that.  The only down side is that either the transceiver would have to be the first device on the cable or you would have to modify every other device to pass the voltage connection along.  Not really a big deal but something to consider.  If this modification was done in future units on the board, I would include a jumper that selects if the power is comming from the PoE or the board mounted jack. 

[rrowan]

Hi Dave,

Before I was a mod on Dla there was a staff meeting about poe. It was decided not to go that way for safety reasons and maybe a few other reasons (I was not there). Now RJ might change his mind but lets see what his answer is.

Cheers

Rick R.

[crazybob]

Also keep in mind, it is always good practice not to run you DMX cables and power cables next to each other if possible. I know you're talking low voltage, but it could still cause interference.

[jnealand]

To protect the wall wart from weather you can always mount the TX and wallwart inside a case like the CG-1000.  You still need power to that case, but we always have power everywhere in the yard.

[wbuehler]

 

[tbone321]

There are a few places that the transcievers will be that these large boxes will either  not fit or just stand out to much so for me PoE still looks like the best option.