Use CRS328-24P as both POE switch and WLAN controller (CAPsMAN)

RouterOS General
1

Can the CRS328-24P-4S+RM be used as both POE switch and WLAN controller (CAPsMAN)?

Planned use

  1. As POE switch to power 18 units cAP ac
  2. As WLAN controller to manage 18 units cAP ac

Reference

-cAP ac uses up 13 W.
-cAP ac is on License Level 4
-CRS328-24P has 450 W POE power budget.
-CRS328-24P is on License Level 5.

Thanks!

2

Simply: YES!

3

I Have just installed my CRS-328 this past week. First impressions are GREAT !!.. It simply works. From a POE perspective, I’ve just removed a lot of power injectors from my Mini-NOC lab and cleaned it up real nice. So far, there is only one thing to speak of and thats the auto-sensing voltage for the connected devices. Now this might be a small bug, but when I attach a hAP-AC, it uses 24 VDC instead of the 48 VDC that it is capable of. By comparison, it DOES sense the capabilities of the wAP AC, and send it 48 VDC automatically (Also turns on a red light for the port showing it is using high voltage :slight_smile: I like that). Now, I CAN over-ride the automatic settings for the hAP AC and send it 48VDC, which works fine but thought someone at Mikrotik might be interested in my findings.

All in all, great box !! Glad I spent the money..

-tp

4

The difference is that hAP ac uses “passive” PoE, and not every device with passive PoE can bear 48V input. And there is no way to tell whether the one connected in particular does or not. wAP AC uses the “IEEE” aka “802.3af/at” aka “real” PoE which can be reliably recognized from passive PoE and which must accept 48 V.