POE injector panels?

[Rob_D]

Hi guys,

 

I was wondering if anyone has used a POE injector panel (or rack mount POE injector) like this?

 

It strikes me as a good way to save a bit on not having to get new POE switches. Sure, if you're getting new switches anyway then getting POE ones makes sense, but this seems like a good idea for places where the current switching is fine, but you need a bunch of POE.

 

But, I've never really heard of people using them. Is there some gotcha that I'm not thinking of? Or are they more common than I think?

 

Thanks!

[howartp]

We looked at this when we went wireless, but also needed some Gig ports and didn't have room for old switch + new POE panel in some cabs, so we went with POE Gig switches in the end.

[theeggmaster]

I've got 4 x 12 port power injector switches in our storeroom (i.e. can provide power and data to 12 devices per switch). They were installed before I started as part of a wireless installation. They're not needed now as we got a new network (with PoE) when we moved into this building, two years ago. They ran along nicely and I didn't have any issues with them at all.

[pete]

At £26/each if you need to reboot an unresponsive AP/IP camera, you're going to need a ladder and/or cabinet keys to physically unplug the cable (either at the cabinet or the ceiling tile).

 

And the linked model doesn't support Gigabit, while most new APs do.

[Rob_D]

At £26/each if you need to reboot an unresponsive AP/IP camera, you're going to need a ladder and/or cabinet keys to physically unplug the cable (either at the cabinet or the ceiling tile).

 

We'd just unplug the network from the switch or at the device, even for things going into POE switches. The idea of (presumably) de-powering the port from the switch interface never occurred to me before. But then I've always had fairly easy access to the POE switches or would have to have gone to the switch to find out which port the device was plugged into anyway.

[howartp]

We reboot remotely all the time.

 

The only interfaces labelled on any switches are the POE ones, so we can do exactly this!

[pete]

We'd just unplug the network from the switch or at the device, even for things going into POE switches. The idea of (presumably) de-powering the port from the switch interface never occurred to me before. But then I've always had fairly easy access to the POE switches or would have to have gone to the switch to find out which port the device was plugged into anyway.

 

*cough*LibreNMS*cough*

 

(assuming your switches are vaguely sensible, it'll tell you what's connected via CDP/LLDP).