Power over ethernet

LOL. that's funny. Just be carefull, don't leave that laying around or it may fall into the hands of someone who does not know better!

It's not actually connected.

There's one of these floating around the network operations bullpen at work. I'm hoping no one shows it to the VP of Operations. He might believe it's real and pitch a fit about having wasting money on those PoE switches for the phone system.

--Peace

If it was wired, how would it be wired, and what would happen if you tried to use it, plugged it into a mobo or big switch?

It'd be neat if the IP over Power hardware was as simple as that (kind of slick). I realize IPoP (?)has its limitations, but maybe its possible to squeeze a whole other low-bandwidth internet in the existing power grid. Maybe... its already there.

your networking gear isn't designed to handle 120v. You would defiantly kill the router/switch, and potentially damage stuff hooked up to it. Feeding 120v into the ethernet port on your standard networking device is a good way to release the magic smoke.

PoE is low voltage DC current, not high voltage AC. It uses the unused pins and lines in Cat-5, so all that's required is a connection converter at both ends, which is easily home-brewed. In _theory_ there should be no problems plugging a cable carrying PoE into a standard switch/router.

In practise, someone may have wired up the PoE cable/converter wrong, or the port on the device may be non-standard or faulty, in which case you risk flaky behaviour at best, and smoke ejection at worst. I doubt that Cat-5 could handle more than a few milliamps/ a few milliseconds at 120V before melting, but in that time it could easily kill anything mis-connected at the other end.

Powerline networking is a different beast altogether. You're pumping packets into the building's mains wiring. There are no spare wires, so the data has to be modulated into the mains AC waveform. That requires a whole buncha different electronics, including protection, and is not recommended for homebrew at all nosiree.

It's a nice joke piece from a bored techie.

Microsft discontinued a personal powerline network system a few years ago. I forget the name, but it needed a special card/box for each machine. I'm pretty sure it was decentralized so I don't know how useful it was over basic home filesharing and maybe sharing a machines internet connection to the network.

You yanks are uselesss. 110V isn't serious. You wanna do 220/240V over Cat-5, like we do in Europe. That'll teach the kids not to stick their fingers in the 'phone socket.

[Please assure me that PoE is used discriminately in the US. Otherwise I fear that I would have been one of the inquisative kids who sampled it.]

How much current can you get away with?

Well... thats a tough one.

Technically it isn't the voltage that kills you, it's the amperage. In theory, one could take a 10,000v shock and although it would hurt like the dickens, you would walk away, assuming the amperage was really low. However, a 10v source, for example, with a high enough amperage will easily kill you.

I've been bitten by 110v enough times, and I've been tazered. I've had other shocks too. Really, I think the 110v was worse than the tazer. I don't know the voltage of the tazer, but a bunch of us were playing with it and I ended up with a shock to the back of the thigh. It sure didn't have a lasting sting/throb like getting a 110v to the fingers.