Hap AX3 as an access point

Hardware MikroTik hardware general
1

I bought myself an RB5009 POE router and entertained myself trying to learn Router OS to set this up with my BT fiber 900 mb ISP service using PPPOE.

Thankfully I fully utilised Chat GPT to correct some of my many set up errors and finally ave it set up with decent firewall rules and IP6V. I even set up CAKE. This feeds a couple of Unifi 6 Pro access points and one unifi UAP AC HD as I needed an additional ethernet port that had a USB so key to power and connect my Tado central heating bridge.

So far all is well in the world. My family don’t pester me as the WiFi just works and routing performance seems excellent.

Feeling more confident with Router OS I saw a second hand HAP AX3 for sale at a good price thinking I can swap out the unifi UAP AC HD for a mikrotik AX device as an access point to have WiFi 6 with roaming throughout the house with a few additional ethernet ports at my disposal.

After completing the purchase I then did some reading…

Seems that people are in a flat spin trying to get decent and consistent performance out of a HAP AX3. Is it really that bad? (I have not yet tried it as am away on a work trip)? Should I just save myself a few days debug and just buy a dumb switch and buy another UniFi U6 Pro to achieve what I need?

I (and Chat GPT) don’t mind a challenge as long as the battle is winnable and worth it.

Comments appreciated.

2

Hi, buy hap ax3 it is working very well.

3

I bought it already. Reading all the posts about range and throughput scared me a bit

4

Just give it a try and make sure it is configured properly.

5

I get home on Thursday so will give it a shot. Fingers crossed

6

The biggest downside of the hAP ax³ is that it only supports max. 28 V input for PoE vs. the typical 57 V of nearly all other MikroTik devices.

7

Great catch.

I use the standard 48v PSU on the RB5009 and was going to use the POE out to power the HAP AX3.

Will drive into winbox and turn off the POE out in that port and use the HAP PSU which is a bit annoying

8

Not that it anywhere documented properly, but the RB5009UPr+S+IN should be compatible with BOTH 802.3af/at (the latter limited to 440 mA) AND with the “old” Mikrotik passive power @24V.
If you power the RB5009 at 24V (by either passive PoE or jack/terminal) it will output 24V (Passive PoE out).
Not a “perfect” solution, as you need a suitable 24V power supply, but a possibility if you really cannot use a “local” power adapter for the Ax3 (or other 24V access point).

9

Is the power supply provided with the RB5009 sufficient? That is a 24V 1,5A power adapter.

10

48v

This powers the unifi access points.

This voltage takes precedence from what I understand

11

Yes and no (actually no and yes, but …) :open_mouth: .

The power supply provided with the “PoE Out” version of the RB5009 (RB5009UPr+S+IN ) is the 48V 2A:
https://mikrotik.com/product/48v2a96w
so it has 96W, enough to power a number of devices (the RB5009 itself should use around 16W) but not the “full potential” of output power 130W.

The 24V 1.5A is the power supply provided with the non-PoE RB5009 (RB5009UG+S+IN).

Anyway, if you have a spare one around, 24V 1.5A are 36W, so it can power the UPr version and has some 20W spare, the Ax3 (without attachments) is around 15W, so it should be enough for just the RB5009 and the Ax3.

Smoerrebroed is correct that it is an issue with the Ax3 (though IMHO not as serious as the generic wifi connectivity issues) as nowadays it is more likely that everything is 48 V and 802.3af/at, my note was more about “if you have a whole setup at 24V the RB5009UPr can still be used in it”.

Splitters including converters from 48V to 24V do exist, however, not exactly cheap and an additional possible source of problems.

12

I’ve similar setup in multiples sites : RB5009 as main router and AX3/AX2 and/or AC3/AC2.

But no capsman at this time due to AC doesn’t support vlan from datapath since v7.14 ; so it’s more easier to handle manual cfg for all ap models manualy, AC replacment is planned for next year.

13

Well I got things set up and running without a hitch. Speed and range seem to be ok. Will have a play to get roaming fully dialled in between the HAP AX3 and the Unifi U6 pros.

Not had any of the horror stories of others with respect to range or throughput.

When I accessed the unit, (as it was not new) router os was on 7.15 but the board firmware was 7.13. just updated everything to 7.16.1

Let’s see how we get on!

Appreciate the comments

14

A little update on this.

I started playing around with the settings and a slight screw up on config can lead to client disconnects. This is to be expected I would say.

Only thing I would say is range are speed drop off faster then the Unifi device it replaced. This may still be to do with my config that I am still playing with.

15

Feel free to share your config to get some feedback. Also, by playing with the antenna orientation, different results can be expected.

/export file=anynameyoulike [or] /interface wifi export file=anynameyoulike

Remove serial and any other private info, post between code tags by using the </> button.

16

Thanks i will do it later this evening.

One thing i have noticed in my system (RB5009 POE, 2 x Unifi U6 Pro and HAP AX3), was that clients got stuck on the Unifi Access points. I had almost no client activity on the Hap AX3. Those that did hop onto the HAP AX3 would drop off with log messages showing SA query Timeout.

I changed the security to PWA2 only (from PWA2 PSK and PWA3 PSK), and did the same on my unifi U6 Pro’s, and now devices are happy to jump onto the HA AX3 and stay there. No more SA query Timeouts…