Electronics > Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff

In-Wall Network Switch

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DolphLundgren:
I've been thinking for awhile that it would be nice if someone made a network switch that fit into a standard 1 or 2 gang box and could be used to take a 10G uplink and break it out into 1G ports.
I think this could work really well in homes that are heavily connected without having to do as many runs as it would take to feed all the devices in an room.
You could run a single fiber or Cat6a drop to a room, plug in the switch and have a clean way to connect up your devices. Would be especially cool to power it off PoE and/or pass-through some PoE to other devices.

I went as far as looking for parts to try and make one myself (This Broadcom chip looked promising) but that's about as far as I could go. I tried out KiCad but I've gotta admit that this isn't the easiest project to learn on and I'm pretty sure high speed data lines and BGA chips aren't the most fun at the best of times.

So I've come here to ask if anyone else is interested in this idea, if they could help out or point me in the right direction.

rdl:
Looks pretty close to what you want at a glance, but this kind of device does seem pretty rare. Kind of expensive too, I think.

https://www.amazon.com/PoE-Texas-GBT-4-IW-Gigabit-Extender/dp/B07Z59SG17

Ranayna:
Those exist, but are expensive, and are not flush with the wall:
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/switches/catalyst-micro-switches/index.html#~models

DolphLundgren:

--- Quote from: rdl on May 06, 2021, 10:06:15 am ---Looks pretty close to what you want at a glance, but this kind of device does seem pretty rare. Kind of expensive too, I think.

https://www.amazon.com/PoE-Texas-GBT-4-IW-Gigabit-Extender/dp/B07Z59SG17

--- End quote ---

That's quite close to what I was thinking however it's 1G in and out with a focus on PoE delivery. Honestly not that bad of a price; for a switch like I'm thinking of under $100 would be the goal. Running more drops can get expensive pretty quickly and if it could connect to fiber lines then getting faster speeds over time would just require replacing the switch and not rerunning the system.


--- Quote from: Ranayna on May 06, 2021, 10:16:41 am ---Those exist, but are expensive, and are not flush with the wall:
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/switches/catalyst-micro-switches/index.html#~models



--- End quote ---

That seems vaguely similar to what I was thinking of. Do you think the size is a limitation due to heat or just because it's designed more for business/enterprise that is more likely to use large cable ducts? Also whatever the price is I wouldn't be surprised since it's Cisco and they are charging a lot on name value, software and support.


Combining the two ideas basically creates what I was thinking. From the Cisco switch, side mounted SFP+/SFP28/QSFP+/QSFP28 port that is comparable in size to a 1gang box with the faceplate, mounting and possibly (debatably useful until more home devices support it) PoE capabilities of the PoE Texas switch.

I'm going to look more into the PoE Texas company, see how large they are and what they have for products; I could see them making something like this.

Also I would take any advice that I can get on actually designing something like this. The chip I was looking at seems like it should almost be plug-n-play with the basic setup I saw in the documentation; bearing in mind that I'm very new to this it seemed like it would only take wiring to the proper connectors and a power supply to get it working in an unmanaged fashion but I, obviously, can't be sure of that. Also even if it is that easy, I still don't know how on earth to handle designing a circuit board for a BGA chip.

Ranayna:
I have no experience with those micro switches, and only little with catalysts in general.
Also, i might have been premature mentioning them: They were announced in January, but apparently you still can't buy these, they are still not even in the pricelist yet.

I would assume that the size is mainly a thermal issue. The default DC power supply (external!) is 80 Watts, and it can provide 65 Watts PoE power to downstream devices. I think that can get quite toasy under load.
Additionally, these are fully managed as far as i know (of course only if you pay extra for the license), so that will also take additional space.

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