Recently one of our clients has been having problems with Routerboard 18s.

We've investigated thoroughly and found the issue to be with the RB230. Mikrotik agrees that the RB230 cannot supply sufficient current on the 3.3V line for the RB18s to function with a full complement of cards.

The official stance is that the RB230 should only be used with an RB14. This is completely understandable from our point of view, but we still need a solution for our customers who wish to use the RB18s.

In South Africa we have minimal bandwidth available and it is hellishly expensive to boot. With this in mind, many of our customers are not as worried about high bandwidth (since most cannot afford a 512k or 1M link) but rather more connectivity and then optimising the available bandwidth amongst all their users. This is the reason why they tend to try eke as much connectivity into a low power box as possible.

The main questions I have at the moment is:

Who if anyone is using a RouterBoard 18 and with how many wireless cards what hardware platform (motherboard), and what power supply to the board?

Has anyone got any comments on the RB18 and what they use it for?

Has any else had any issues with the RB18?

I can tell you that it should be quite easy(for someone with good soldering skills) to add an external power receptacle to the RB18, to allow it to be powered by an separate external power supply. You would simply need a few resistors and a MOSFET to switch the current on at the proper time, and these could be easily added to the board. If this is a possibility for you, feel free to reply, and I will elaborate....

Hitek

The soldering skills we've got so it is a possibility.

Whether we'll actually do it is a different story altogether. It's something we'll have to weigh up.

Can you elaborate?

Basically, the process would entail cutting the traces to the power supply pins at the PCI card-edge connector on the RB18, and then soldering a jumper wire from each side of one of the cut traces to a resistor and MOSFET that you have soldered to a blank area of the circuit board. A power recepticle of your choice could then be mounted on the RB18(I usually also solder these onto a blank area of the board in question, near the edge) with one pin of the connector going to ground, of course, and the other pin going to the MOSFET for the board's supply current. You would then use an external regulated 3.3 Volt switching power supply with an ample current rating to feed the newly mounted power connector and MOSFET. The MOSFET would be biased by the original supply current upon it's presence, which in turn would switch on the current from the external 3.3 Volt power supply, supplying it almost instantaneously(depending on the MOSFET chosen) to the Mini-PCI cards....

I have seen DC to DC 3.3Volt switching power supplies in the 15 Amp range for $30-$40US, and of course, finding an AC powered 3.3 Volt supply would be no problem at all, since may types of equipment use these types of supplies....

Hitek

Also, note that some of the specifics would be determined by the board itself, such as exactly where to cut the traces, solder the additional parts, etc., but these factors are usually easily accomodated....

Hitek

And also you can use any power supply from a regular PC (you will just have to shorten two pins on the motherboard connector, so that power supply know would switch on - search google for detailed instructions)