Questions about POE++ on the CRS320

I just purchased a CRS320-8P-8B-4S+RM to put at a tower site. I may have a misunderstanding about POE but I am trying to power an Ubiquiti AF-11 with this switch, the Mikrotik and the AF-11 do not auto detect POE for some reason, and my only option is to force on POE but only at the lower amperage. I cannot force the port at the higher bt poe standard, therefore my AF-11 overpowers the port and shuts off. What am I missing here?

Maybe you have a ground loop with that?

(I am assuming that you tried the "right" bt ports (ether9-16)

Power output

This device can supply PoE power to external devices through its Ethernet ports. All ports provide ~54V.

Ethernet ports 1 to 8 can power 802.3 af/at devices. By default, the PoE mode is set to auto, ensuring it will not damage devices. It will auto-detect devices with PoE support and provide power. Once a PoE device is detected, it will be powered, and the PoE LEDs will turn on.
Ethernet ports 9 to 16 can power 802.3 af/at/bt devices, supporting "Type 3" (Classes 5-6) and "Type 4" (Classes 7-8).
Each 802.3 af/at port can provide up to 30W with high voltage.
Each 802.3 bt port can provide up to 90W.

Supports only fully compliant 802.3 at/af/bt PD devices: mAP-lite, RB1100AHx4, CRS510-8XS-2XQ, CRS504-4XQ-OUT, CRS504-4XQ-IN

Non-isolated devices like NetMetal ax can cause ground loop issues, if ground path is produced by PSU or earthing cable.
If such device is required, RBGPOE-CON-HP should be used to provide galvanic isolation

(but since the Ubiquiti wants 50 V or so, the RBGPOE-CON-HP cannot be used in this case)

from spec:

PoE-out ports:
Ether1-Ether8 (af/at), 
Ether9-Ether16 (bt)

maybe you using wrong port ?

I am using the correct ports, I actually found a way around it, the terminal has an option to force on bt poe, it’s just not an option in the winbox gui. Hopefully mikrotik has a plan to implement it into the actually winbox gui.

Winbox3 or winbox4?

If the former I guess there is nothing to do :woozy_face:, if the latter you should (IMHO) file a support ticket about the issue.

I tried both, thought maybe they’d have the option in winbox4 but they didn’t

Regarding GUI support - No, the feature was specifically made CLI-Only so to minimize possible user errors and accidents damaging non 802.3bt capable end-point devices.
Documentation mentions all the possible modes: PoE-Out - RouterOS - MikroTik Documentation

If possible, please set the mode to auto and generate supout.rif, then send it to support@mikrotik.com for investigation. Also, was the issue present with the latest v7.23rc version?

This:

  • forced-on-bt - detection range is removed. Power to PD will be provided through all 4 power pairs and power over Ethernet will be always on. (Available only on PSE that support 802.3bt PoE-Out)

Might be changed to:

forced-on-bt[1] - detection range is removed. Power to PD will be provided through all 4 power pairs and power over Ethernet will be always on. (Available only on PSE that support 802.3bt PoE-Out).
[1] the setting is intentionally CLI only and NOT available in Winbox GUI, let alone Webfig, to prevent accidental activation.