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Increase the on board 24V power supply capacity

Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2018 9:42 pm
by sirhc
In older WS-12-250-AC / WS-12-250-DC / WS-12-400-AC / WS-12-DC made in early 2017 and prior the 24V power supply on the board was only rated at about 108+/- watts.

In Q1 2017 we modified the design for all new boards being made to increase the rating to about 160+/- watts to better handle newer radio power requirements.

The good news is the modification to increase this capacity is easy to do yourself if your good with a soldering iron or you can RMA your unit and we will modify it for you and add all the other newer hardware MODs and fully test it out for a reasonable fee.

In the picture below you can see all you need to do is "carefully" solder a small wire between two parts.

Another way to tell is if you look at the board's "white stenciling", not the white rectangular box Labeled "CFG" which refers to the firmware configuration to be used, if the white Stenciling says Board Rev G it may already have the MOD done as we had the SMT shop start doing the modification mid production run. If it says Rev H or Rev I then your good. If it is Rev G or below you need the MOD if it is not already on the board as pictured above. The important thing is to take a 24AWG wire from the one side of the R100 resistor "as shown in the picture below" to any DC negative source which many of the old board Revs have a GND Testpoint right there near the R100 resistor.

CLICK IMAGE BELOW TO VIEW FULL SIZE
24CMOD.JPG

Re: Increase the on board 24V power supply capacity

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2018 6:23 pm
by sbyrd
Is this something that can happen suddenly?

I have had these access points on this switch for over a year and never had this happen before.

Re: Increase the on board 24V power supply capacity

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2018 7:45 pm
by sirhc
sbyrd wrote:Is this something that can happen suddenly?

I have had these access points on this switch for over a year and never had this happen before.


I answered this in your other thread. But yes if your network is growing and or you add newer or more high draw 24V radios. This is why we changed the design to go to 160 watts.

Re: Increase the on board 24V power supply capacity

Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2018 11:50 am
by sbyrd
Maybe I am just ignorant, but why does the WS-12-250 not list anywhere on the product pages or brochure that it only provides 160W when doing 24V?

I bought it with the understanding it was a 250W capable device only to find out that the older version I have is only 106W and the newer ones is only 160W.

Does the same apply to the WS-8-150AC switch? Is it not a full 150W at 24V or is this only a WS-12-250AC switch issue?

Re: Increase the on board 24V power supply capacity

Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2018 12:06 pm
by sirhc
When we manufactured the switches the average 24V device used 6 watts, 106 watts was more than enough especially assuming people would also be powering 48V devices on some ports.

The main selling point of our switches was they could power AF radios.

The switch advertises the total wattage capacity of the unit which is accurate.

The ToughSwitch PRO when it came out could not power more than 4 or maybe 5 24V radios before it started rebooting radios and it was advertised as 150 watts which it was but the 24V power supply was like 50 watts. They later upgraded their 24V power supply as well but ours was much higher than theirs and we assumed newer radios would use less watts not more as the trend is chips that are more energy efficient.

Re: Increase the on board 24V power supply capacity

Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2018 4:00 pm
by JustJoe
Chris, am I correct in assuming that this added wire is only carrying voltage/current programming levels for the regulator chip?

In other words, is an individual piece of Ethernet solid or stranded cable wire gauge is more than enough to carry the necessary current?

Re: Increase the on board 24V power supply capacity

Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2018 4:32 pm
by sbyrd
So then when I look at a Netonix switch how can I figure what the 24V Watt ratings are? I think it would be helpful to list the 24V and 48V max wattage for each of your switches.

Just because UBNT was not clear on their Toughswitches doesn't mean you cannot be clear on the power capabilities of your superior switches.

Re: Increase the on board 24V power supply capacity

Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2018 8:33 pm
by JustJoe
WS-12-250-AC-REV_B_160W-MOD.JPG
Oh well .... I guess off-topic questions are more likely to be answered than the on-topic one I had asked earlier. lol !

If anybody cares, could you confirm that I did this mod correctly on this WS-12-250-AC-REV_B ?? The board layout is slightly different, but TP4 GND should be OK according to the instructions.

I was able to accomplish this by removing only the lid and the serial cable harness. I left the board mounted in the base of the box. It was tight and took some hacking experience creativity. It would require less skill if the board was removed from the base. But I have about 16 of these to do, so I wanted to save all that "screwing around".

Re: Increase the on board 24V power supply capacity

Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2018 3:17 pm
by sirhc
Yes this is correct.

Re: Increase the on board 24V power supply capacity

Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2018 6:21 pm
by beambarossa
Is there a way to tell board revision by software somehow to save opening them all up?