Low power ethernet switch

[laika]

What's my lowest power stable option for an on-board gigabit ethernet switch? My electrics are 12v, a 5 port unmanaged switch would be fine, and it would be mounted in the (relative) dry below decks.

The dlink green series look good but are 7.5v so presumably I'd loose a little in the step down. The netgears are 12v but rated at twice the power. Stated tolerance on the netgears is +/- 10%.

Anyone have a set-up which they consider to be both stable and very power efficient?

 

[lustyd]

This any good?

It's worth thinking also that you almost certainly don't need gig ethernet on your boat. 100Mbps is more than enough for A/V applications and file transfer, especially with so few devices on the link.
Cheers
Dave

 

[chriscoreline]

This any good?

It's worth thinking also that you almost certainly don't need gig ethernet on your boat. 100Mbps is more than enough for A/V applications and file transfer, especially with so few devices on the link.
Cheers
Dave

i would say that you may not even need a full fat switch, a hub or repeater at 100 would do the job very well and may save you some power.

 

[prv]

The netgears are 12v but rated at twice the power. Stated tolerance on the netgears is +/- 10%.

Despite the tolerance, I wouldn't run a switch directly off the boat's 12v. Mine charges at a steady 14.5 volts, and transient spikes are probably higher. You ought to be able to knock up a regulator for a quid or two's worth of parts from RS.

Pete

 

[laika]

Thanks for the advice folks. Actually we do have "special needs" for gigE but those needs are power hungry and this switch is largely for when we've just got the minimal essentials on, and those don't need more than 100baseTX. Having a couple of switches (10/100 low power + 10/100/1000 "normal") is an option but the topology is a bit simpler if they're both gig (no need to switch ports on the laptop). I had assumed that these days the cost/power requirements of Gig PHYs wouldn't be that much more than for 100meg, but maybe not.

Googling for switching regulators it appears that the components are cheap but ready made ones aren't. If this is an easy question for someone, any recommendations for an efficient switching regulator for (a) 12v or (b) 5v output from 10-15v input?

 

[markdj]

Try this...

http://goo.gl/VPL0A

It's a TP Link 5 port Gigabit unmanaged switch. Uses 12v DC AFAIK.

I would have thought that you would be better getting a 3G Broadband router so that you could plug in an 3g dongle. I use an Edimax one and it has 4 ports and router, therefore ip assignment.

Here is our setup...



We have a little mixing desk and wireless microphone receiver for when we are commentating but otherwise from left to right I have a Synology 4bay 5.5Tb Raid 5 NAS, HDX1000 media player, Edimax Wireless access point (connected to external high gain wifi aerial for BTOpenZone mostly, Edimax 3G router, VGA distribution box, 24volt ZOOM PC with Intel Dual Core, slot-loading DVD.



Mark