Small remote site (pole with small Ethernet switch, cameras and Access Point)

[crazydane]

I have a about a 20 acre property with an open field about 1000ft from the house with a river bordering the open field. Location would be as follows: (red line)



The pine trees visible above the red line towards the South will be felled, so there will be plenty of sun all year with little shade except early morning and late afternoon.

I'm going to run fiber from the house (down from the East) to the marked location where I want to mount a couple of security cameras and a Wifi 6 AP. I had a wireless link a few years ago to this same location, but it doesn't work during the summer due to foliage on the trees during the summer.

The switch, transceiver, 3x cameras and AP will consume at total of about 40 watts 24/7/365. I just need 120V AC to power the switch, which in turn will power the Cameras and APs via PoE.

Where I live in Central Virginia, we see below freezing temps in the winter and 90+ degrees in the summer.

Would the following list of equipment be suitable for my needs:

SOK 206Ah 12v heated battery
Victron MPPT 75 | 15 charge controller
Victron Phoenix 12 | 120 inverter

I have a pair of 270 watt 60 cell panels with cracked glass I was going to use initially, wired in series to the charge controller and then upgrade later to a larger single panel.

I was looking around for a small combination charge controller/inverter, but didn't find anything. If such a think exists, let me know.

Anyway, does the above otherwise look like a decent setup?

Thanks!

 

[12VoltInstalls]

I was looking around for a small combination charge controller/inverter, but didn't find anything. If such a think exists, let me know

This is more than you need but an Epever 10A is like $60 and a 300W Giandel pure sine is around $60, too, and will be probably less than half the idle consumption.

just need 120V AC to power the switch, which in turn will power the Cameras and APs via PoE

So the switch; can you not power it with DC? Most of these devices are occasionally 5V or most often 12V DC in actuality. Might be able to skip a point of failure.

 

[Any name you wish]

I agree with the above. I use Planet PoE injectors at work and they are fine. Plus they have good climate temp range for you as well. https://www.planet.com.tw/en/product/ipoe-270-ipoe-270-12v

Run that in to a USW-Flex and you get to power all your things. You can use both ports on that PoE injector to power a media converter to get the fiber terminated. You may have to use a media converter on the core switch if you can't find one that plays well with the switch.

DIN rail mount, the utility box for the switch too. With that long of a fiber run, this project is gonna be near $2k I imagine on network alone. (est. $700 for 1k ft fiber reel, $500 for switch, PoE injector, media converter, $500 for 3 cameras and access point, etc.) Also take into account that if you are using night vision cameras, when the IR kicks in, power does go up. With two cameras and an UAP-AC-Mesh, two USB devices on an PSW inverter, I was consuming about 1.5 - 2A at night. During the day is was sub 1A.

I am guessing you were using the 5GHz PtP equipment, did you look into 900MHz to see if you could do that link as well? Trying to save cash.

 

[pvdude]

Consider industrial DIN rail Ethernet switches, this one runs on DC 12-48vdc

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B1HXD6BJ?pd_rd_i=B0B1HXD6BJ&pf_rd_p=0e085ce4-a814-4f4b-b24c-1b9dbfa919e0&pf_rd_r=KT1KGFQQY7CJJ2MQF31P&pd_rd_wg=6aVIu&pd_rd_w=UwhU5&pd_rd_r=225bbe74-603b-4e0a-8549-131774284314&th=1

 

[crazydane]

Great suggestion about just getting a switch capable of being powered by DC directly! So I'm a bit of a UniFi fanboy already, lol:



So I plan to stick with equipment from them. Long term, I plan to build a small cabin down in the field near the river. So with that in mind, I might just get this switch. It has 16 PoE+ ports and 8 PoE++ ports, as well as 2 SFP+ ports. Total PoE budget is 400W. That would be plenty for some PoE LED lights, for example. And the SFP+ ports means I can run a 10G link from my shop building where I already have a vacant SFP+ port and that build is already being feed 10G from the core switch from the house. And most importantly, being a UniFi Pro switch, it can be powered with 52VDC.

So instead of spending $1,200 on a SOL 12V 206Ah battery, why not drop a few hundred more and just get a EG4 LiFePOWER4 48V 100Ah one? I would need to get a weather proof 19" rack to house the EG4, UniFi switch and possibly the inverter. If I get the EG4 rack battery, I'm really tempted to just get a 6500EX-48 to go with it. That would give me PLENTY of capacity for running my switch and PoE devices, but could quite possibly also be sufficient for my little cabin.

As for the fiber, I already have a spool with a little over 1800' left on it. The county left it behind about 10 years ago when they ran fiber in my neighborhood. So a very nice score. I also have picked up a cheap fusion splicer from eBay some years back when I did the fiber run between the house and the shop. It cost less what what I would have had to pay someone to come out and splice fiber for me.



Its nice Panduit 9/125 fiber, so fully capable of 10G. In fact, I used a 300' section this very spool to do the 10G link between the house and the shop building. I terminated 12 strands on both ends.

Run is right around 700':



The location where the network stuff is going and the future cabin location is really nice. This is a pic I took just yesterday after mowing the 6 acres of open area:



I'm almost tempted to just pick up some junk camper/trailer on Craigslist/Market place to house the equipment for now to keep it out of the elements. I could probably pick that up for about the same I would spend on a weather proof rack cabinet...

EDIT: I found this beauty for $1,100:



Blown engine, but that's ok. I have truck and trailer capable of towing it back home. Hell, might even rebuild the engine since I kind of do that on the side, and then sell it once I'm ready to start on my cabin.

 

[Any name you wish]

Great suggestion about just getting a switch capable of being powered by DC directly! So I'm a bit of a UniFi fanboy already, lol:

View attachment 113327

So I plan to stick with equipment from them. Long term, I plan to build a small cabin down in the field near the river. So with that in mind, I might just get this switch. It has 16 PoE+ ports and 8 PoE++ ports, as well as 2 SFP+ ports. Total PoE budget is 400W. That would be plenty for some PoE LED lights, for example. And the SFP+ ports means I can run a 10G link from my shop building where I already have a vacant SFP+ port and that build is already being feed 10G from the core switch from the house. And most importantly, being a UniFi Pro switch, it can be powered with 52VDC.

So instead of spending $1,200 on a SOL 12V 206Ah battery, why not drop a few hundred more and just get a EG4 LiFePOWER4 48V 100Ah one? I would need to get a weather proof 19" rack to house the EG4, UniFi switch and possibly the inverter. If I get the EG4 rack battery, I'm really tempted to just get a 6500EX-48 to go with it. That would give me PLENTY of capacity for running my switch and PoE devices, but could quite possibly also be sufficient for my little cabin.

As for the fiber, I already have a spool with a little over 1800' on it. I also have my own automatic fusion splicer:

View attachment 113333

Its nice Panduit 9/125 fiber, so fully capable of 10G. In fact, I used a 300' section this very spool to do the 10G link between the house and the shop building. I terminated 12 strands on both ends.

The location where the network stuff is going and the future cabin location is really nice. This is a pic I took just yesterday after mowing the 6 acres of open area:

View attachment 113337

I'm almost tempted to just pick up some junk camper/trailer on Craigslist/Market place to house the equipment for now to keep it out of the elements. I could probably pick that up for about the same I would spend on a weather proof rack cabinet...

So that's where all the Unifi equipment went...

 

[crazydane]

So that's where all the Unifi equipment went...

Lol, tell me about it. I seem to perpetually be on their notify list for when they get stuff in stock. Been on the waiting list for their Camera AI360 and Bullet for what seems like an eternity already.

 

[pvdude]

Unifi is great equipment, two U6-lite AP's installed here.
I use Juniper EX-2300-C POE+ Ethernet switches, have SFP+ available, but
just running 1gig on the multimode fiber between the house and shed now.

 

[Any name you wish]

Lol, tell me about it. I seem to perpetually be on their notify list for when they get stuff in stock. Been on the waiting list for their Camera AI360 and Bullet for what seems like an eternity already.

Set an alarm for 6AM EST and wait. That is how I got my doorbell.

 

[Checkthisout]

As others have said, no need for inverter.

Just use a DC 12-48v transformer and strip the power supply out of a switch or whatever voltage is needed for your stuff.

Here is mine. I stripped the 120v ac to 48v dc power supply out and replaced it with a 12-48v dc transformer. Working good for 2 years now. Dirt cheap poe switch ($21.00) with one camera at the end of an 800 foot run.

Ubiquity is 24V I think? So batter your system at 24V and no need for transformer.

 

[crazydane]

So Unifi used to be 24V only, but that was proprietary and now they do regular PoE, which is 48V. I have an older 1st gen PoE switch that does both 24V and 48V, and the PSU in it died, so I picked up some cheap PSU's on eBay to get it going again. One adjusted for 24V and the other for 53V.

Here's the end result:





Specs actually called for 24V and 53V, so I adjusted the 48V to match that:



Their current gen Pro line of switches can be powered by either AC or DC. This is why I'm looking at one for this project, since I can just feed it 53V DC straight from a EG4 48V rack battery.

EDIT: Crap, looks like I also need to feed that Unifi Pro switch 12V as well as 53V:


I think one of these should take care of that for me, right?

https://www.amazon.com/HOMELYLIFE-Voltage-Reducer-Converter-Transformer/dp/B008CM4WZ2/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?keywords=48v%2Bto%2B12v%2Bconverter&qid=1664064622&sr=8-1-spons&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEyUFIzQzVTVUlXSU9SJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNjMzNjI1MjlJMDNSV0Q3QkZUJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTA1NDQ2NTFXOFFPSjE3NE5WSVAmd2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGYmYWN0aW9uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl&th=1

But if I go with the EG4 6500EX-48, I guess it would all be moot as I can just use the 120 VAC output from that unit...

Having 2nd thoughts about that old nasty RV. Thinking I can probably build a cabin shell for close to that cost. Doing some research now. I know lumber cost has come down, but still seem kind of high.

 

[Checkthisout]

So Unifi used to be 24V only, but that was proprietary and now they do regular PoE, which is 48V. I have an older 1st gen PoE switch that does both 24V and 48V, and the PSU in it died, so I picked up some cheap PSU's on eBay to get it going again. One adjusted for 24V and the other for 53V.

Here's the end result:

View attachment 113365

View attachment 113366

Specs actually called for 24V and 53V, so I adjusted the 48V to match that:

View attachment 113367

Their current gen Pro line of switches can be powered by either AC or DC. This is why I'm looking at one for this project, since I can just feed it 53V DC straight from a EG4 48V rack battery.

EDIT: Crap, looks like I also need to feed that Unifi Pro switch 12V as well as 53V:

View attachment 113371
I think one of these should take care of that for me, right?

https://www.amazon.com/HOMELYLIFE-Voltage-Reducer-Converter-Transformer/dp/B008CM4WZ2/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?keywords=48v%2Bto%2B12v%2Bconverter&qid=1664064622&sr=8-1-spons&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEyUFIzQzVTVUlXSU9SJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNjMzNjI1MjlJMDNSV0Q3QkZUJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTA1NDQ2NTFXOFFPSjE3NE5WSVAmd2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGYmYWN0aW9uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl&th=1

But if I go with the EG4 6500EX-48, I guess it would all be moot as I can just use the 120 VAC output from that unit...

Having 2nd thoughts about that old nasty RV. Thinking I can probably build a cabin shell for close to that cost. Doing some research now. I know lumber cost has come down, but still seem kind of high.

The standby draw on that inverter though? Guess it would depend on if it's already going to be on all the tike.

I have 6 cameras, cellular modem, router (in ap mode), a mini PC, an echo dot, an amplifier for the echo dot,2 4 relay internet devices and base station for a wifi weather station.

Total draw ~50 watts.

 

[Surf]

6500ex has 70w idle.

I picked up the two 6500ex bundle as it came with a free 48v chargeverter. One fixed unit with a 13kw battery is more than enough to run the cabin. No heating requirements and no large draw well pump. The second ex6500 will be used to build a 10kw mobile power station that can plug and play parallel to the fixed unit for 240 draws when needed.

I am also configuring small 12v stations, and good ideas here.

 

[NC_hydro]

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