[SOLVED] Country Internet -- Wiring for Solar to PoE on Ubiquity AirGrid

[MarownIOM]

Hello,

I've been surviving on cellphone internet for too long. Satellite sucks. Metered connections suck. A new tower is going up in November which requires line-of-sight. My house is in a valley surrounded by trees. It's lovely but working from home is a challenge.

I've come to the conclusion that I would need to put up a 40' tower about 400' from my house across a stream and up a hill (as I said, lovely). With the limit to Ethernet supposedly 333' I would need to put the tower up just beyond that and I doubt PoE would work at that distance anyway. Maybe 250' -- but with a stream -- water gets into everything after a while.

At the base of the 40' tower I would put:
- Ubiquity Network Air Grid outdoor unit (LBE-M5-23-US)
- a box containing a solar charged battery (with a solar panel outside obviously)

The power requirements for the air grid are as follows:
Max. Power Consumption: 4W
Power Supply: 24V, 0.2A PoE Adapter (Included)
Power Method: Passive PoE (Pairs 4, 5+; 7, 8 Return)

The solar battery would also need to power the ISP's PoE antennae -- which I do not have the specs on but assume the power requirement is the same.

How would I best wire up the PoE to the Air Grid from the battery?

 

[bill001g]

Passive PoE is almost always proprietary but all that really matters is you put the correct voltage on the correct pairs.

You need to check the information you have above is really correct before your actually connect anything.

On a standard ethernet cable pairs 4,5 is blue and 7,8 is brown. So all you would do is cut into the cable and cut those pairs. The end going to radio unit you would connect the blue to positive and the brown to negative. It should work fine on battery as long as it is 24 volts.

The thing you need to be careful is that the 2 pairs going the equipment on the other end you would need to be sure is not connected to power. You can just leave them cut.

Your ISP antenna may or may not be possible this way. If it uses the industry standard 802.3ad/802.3at that is active protocol that only provides power on request. It also runs at 48volts. If that is how it works you can get a 802.3ad power injector that is power via DC and make it work that way.

 

[ktriebol]

I apologize for not directly answering your question, but you might consider signing up with Elon Musk's Starlink as it is supposed to be available later this year. It is a satellite system, although low-orbit, so I can't say if it will have the same weather-related connection issues that we have experienced with geo-stationary satellite systems.

 

[kanewolf]

I would recommend a pair nanostation AC -- https://www.ui.com/airmax/nanostation-ac/ They will run on 48V 803.3af POE. Then you get one of these -- https://www.amazon.com/Tycon-Systems-TP-DCDC-1248D-Converter-Inserter/dp/B00BNHYPZ0 to provide 48VDC 802.3af POE to the remote nanostation