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DirectWireless
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Super Range 5 in RB200

Wed Jun 29, 2005 7:08 am

I have an RB200 with a 4 CM9 cards in it currently. I would like to replace 2 of the 4 cards with SR5's. Can the RB200's PCI slot support that much current draw? I'm using a 12V DC power supply plugged in directly (no POE).
 
goldclick
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Wed Jun 29, 2005 11:58 pm

The RB14 cannot supply enough current to power the four cards. I had this situation myself and support confirmed it will not work.
 
DirectWireless
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Thu Jun 30, 2005 6:25 am

So when using SR5's I need to use a single-PCI to miniPCI adapter, or is it only in the RB200's PCI slot it can't do it?
 
tully
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Thu Jun 30, 2005 9:02 am

The RB200 has the ability to make 15W for the entire board. The SR5 needs 4-5W avg and more for it's max. Whatever you do, you will be on the edge of the limits. The RB14 LDO (power regulator changing 5V to 3.3V) can put out 4.95W and there is one for two mpci connectors (two LDOs on the RB14 board for a total for four mpci connectors). The SR5 is out of the mpci standard, so anything you do with it will be risky unless the platform was designed to support it.

John
 
hitek146
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Thu Jun 30, 2005 1:51 pm

Or you could put the SRs into only four or five of the eight slots on a RB18..... :D

Or you could use only one SR radio per regulator, and then pair it with a low-powered radio, so that you have a low-powered radio and an SR radio on each regulator, which would be 5 watts or less per pair if you didn't turn the radios up too high..... Also note that many switching and linear regulators can supply more current than they are rated for if they are kept cooled to temperatures below that of the manufacturers maximum rating, although I doubt if Mikrotik would recommend that.... :)

I would also think that you could pair a set of NStreme2 radios between one regulator, since one of the radios would only be receiving most of the time, significantly reducing it's overall current draw....

Hitek

PS. I also notice that a company called SparkLAN is offering a high-powered Atheros based a/b/g Mini-PCI card, among other interesting products....
 
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stephenpatrick
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Thu Jun 30, 2005 6:25 pm

Sparklan website is saying +15dBm for "high power" card @ 54Mbps 802.11a/g....
19dBm for 802.11b.

Interesting, as the Ubiquity cards are either 2.4 OR 5GHz. This is still combined.

Also, it's a type IIIB card, need 5V power. Not sure if all embedded router boards can do that.

Regards
 
hitek146
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Fri Jul 01, 2005 2:55 pm

Ummm... I think that the "III" in "Mini-PCI IIIb" means that the card uses the 124 pin connector, as opposed to the 100 pin connector of the older cards, and the "b" or "a" refers to the dimensions of the circuit board... :D

The CM-9 is a "IIIb" board....

Hitek
 
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stephenpatrick
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Fri Jul 01, 2005 3:24 pm

Thanks for that HiTek -

On the datasheet it says the PA is on the 5V rail for 'a' mode -

Might not work with everyone's boards.

Regards
 
hitek146
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Sat Jul 02, 2005 12:14 am

Oh, yea... I did see that.... I think it meant that the 5 Volts is for the amplifier when using 802.11a mode. It's still the same chipset, so a large portion of the current draw should already have been compensated for in the requirements of the built-in amplifer. In other words, if a separate amplifer circuit(still not sure there actually is one) is producing the the radio's power output, then the chipset's built in amplifer would no longer have to work as hard, drawing much less current than it normally would, offsetting the additional current required by the additional amplifier. Of course, as you say, if the additional current draw is now on the 5 Volt line, it could cause problems with some boards of limited current supplying capacity......

Hitek
 
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stephenpatrick
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Sat Jul 02, 2005 12:31 am

Yup I agree, and don't know what proportion of a "high power" WiFi card is for the power amp (TX) vs. the rest of the chipset.

I have asked MT support to confirm compatibility (no response yet) and will order some up for testing if they are going to be recognised in MT.

Regards
 
jarosoup
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Sat Jul 02, 2005 4:35 am

UniKyrn, I don't get why you are bashing the wraps so much WRT to these cards...you haven't even tried one. According to the whitepaper at ubnt.com, the wraps are listed in their compatibility list.
 
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stephenpatrick
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Mon Jul 04, 2005 10:10 am

It' the Sparklan part that says 5V on datasheet - not SR5
 
Montana
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Tue Jul 05, 2005 7:32 am

If I read the specks on the SR5 correctly worst case is 4.65 Watts. I assume that I can use the RB11 with a SR5 since it is showing 5 Watt max. Is this correct? After reading Tulle's comment on the RB14 I am thinking maybe I can use a RB14 with 2 SR5 cards, as long as I only put 1 card per LDO and not use the other card slot? Is this correct? Is it possiable to change out the regulator to a higher power chip to get the wattage higher so that I can use the RB14's that I currently have with the SR5's?
Thanks
Mike
 
tully
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Tue Jul 05, 2005 12:04 pm

We may offer a RB14 with a higher power LDO. But, the 50% of the power used by the cards will be wasted by the LDO to make the 3.3V. So the efficiency is ~66%. The PCI specs have 20W as the required 5V for the PC PCI bus. So, with four cards running at full speed, you will use 30W. Also, the RB15 is not such a big board to dissipate 30W of heat. As I said, you are on the edge or over it. If your radios do not use the max power (which is usually the case -- you are not transmitting all the time, you need to receive, and there are many other reasons for not transmitting), then it will probably work most of the time.

John
 
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marksx
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Tue Jul 05, 2005 5:35 pm

maybe add external power source to sr-2/5 ?
on the amp specs card could give us about 31dB output power at 5V (2,4GHz 11b) :shock: :shock: :shock:

btw i have done some testing with two SR5 and two SR2 on RB 14 (same
time of course) and all was working fine, but that was only test without any transmission....
 
Montana
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Tue Jul 05, 2005 8:13 pm

Question 1) RB11 is it Ok for a SR5?
Question 2) RB14 is it Ok for 2 SR5's on different LDO's and not use the other MiniPCI slots on the board.
 
hitek146
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Wed Jul 06, 2005 2:13 am

maybe add external power source to sr-2/5 ?
on the amp specs card could give us about 31dB output power at 5V (2,4GHz 11b) :shock: :shock: :shock:

btw i have done some testing with two SR5 and two SR2 on RB 14 (same
time of course) and all was working fine, but that was only test without any transmission....
Old topic.....
http://forum.mikrotik.com/viewtopic.php?t=3492
 
hitek146
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Wed Jul 06, 2005 2:34 am

You could also use a DC-DC converter(which is a switching regulator, as opposed to a linear regulator, and will run at closer to 100% efficiency), powered off of the 12 Volt PCI supply line, such as this one that costs about $40US..... This would supply enough current for all four cards on an RB14.....

http://www.cd4power.com/data/power/ncl/pdc_wpn20r_a.pdf

Edit: You could also replace the 1.5 Amp LM1086 regulator that is on these boards with an 3 Amp LM1085(or even a 5 Amp LM1084 :D ), but you would need to make sure that the PCI slot could supply the required amount of current(or beef up the PCI slot by soldering a jumper wire to the the supply pins), and you would need to place a substantial heatsink on the board. You could also "piggyback" an additonal LM1086 regulator(with heatsink and ample supply current) on top of the existing LM1086 to double the current supplying capacity...

Edit-Edit :) As Tully said, these linear regulators dissipate the additional unused voltage as heat, so your configuration is definitely going to run hotter using larger or more linear regulators. You may actually realize less heat by replacing the linear regulators with switching regulators such as the one linked to above...

Also, RB11 specifications state 5 watts available at the Mini-PCI slot, so it is safe to use a 5 watt card in the slot. RB14 is rated at 5 watts per two slots, so as long as the combined current draw between each pair of slots does not exceed 5 watts, the card in question should work OK....
Hitek
 
Montana
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Wed Jul 06, 2005 3:55 am

Thanks Hitek146
That was the info that I needed.
Mike
 
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Thu Jul 07, 2005 12:18 am

I would try to change LD regulator...
soon my result in this tread..
Regards
 
dutco
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Mon Jul 25, 2005 11:26 am

What about a external power mod to the RB14/18?
 
matt
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Mon Jul 25, 2005 11:35 pm

We to are modding a RB14 with an 8A regulator . Will post more details when completed.
 
Montana
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Thu Jul 28, 2005 7:52 am

Any body knows which regulator supplies which mpci slot? Also, any progress on the mod's on RB14 to report?
 
dutco
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Thu Jul 28, 2005 8:37 pm

Instead of "butchering" an RB14/18 we are having a two port PCI riser built that recieves power from an external connector OR from the host PCI.

Would this be of interest to other? Any reason what this would be a bad idea?

Thank you / Tom
 
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stephenpatrick
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Thu Jul 28, 2005 8:59 pm

IMHO ...
There are 2 problems, (1) is regulation on the RB14 card, which the proposed hacks fix; and (2) is getting enough raw supply current to the cards.
On normal PC motherboards, there's plenty of raw power so the only problem is (1), which the riser/power injector wouldn't help.
However on low power motherboards, such as the RB, you possibly would need the power injector to solve (2), **as well as** improved regulation on the RB14 (1).

I've some interest in 2 slot PCI risers, and have tried tranquilPC and also Travla ones, both are "active" as they buffer clocks and a few other things, and have some jumpers. Some PC-builders report problems with passive 2-slot risers, guess it's mostly motherboard/PCI card timing. Mostly the problems are when running the bus at high utilisation.

Regards
 
dutco
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Sat Jul 30, 2005 7:40 am

I found the source of my misdirection - I had asked support about 4.7watt mini-pci cards in the BR14 and was told I was good to go. My question was for four cards, but the answer was only for one.

I now understand the limitation is in the adapter its self and not necessarily in the mainboard.

Some words of encouragement, on Fri, 22 Jul 2005 I received the following from support: “Please, contact us after 2-4 weeks in order to have information, when high power models will be available.”

For now Ill look fwd to readying more about the mods.
-Tom
 
Montana
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Sun Aug 28, 2005 1:22 am

Hey Guy's what is the latest on the boards? Has anyone made any progress?

Looking at a RB14 which regulator services which PCI socket?
 
hitek146
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Mon Aug 29, 2005 9:29 am

Instead of "butchering" an RB14/18 we are having a two port PCI riser built that recieves power from an external connector OR from the host PCI.
I would hardly call it "butchering", unless the person actually is a butcher, and is taking his first attempt at soldering... :D Replacing a 3 pin regulator is extremely simple, and it can be made even easier if you don't need to completely preserve the original removed part. This is by simply cutting the three legs of the part with small cutters, and applying a small amount of solder to the back edge of the part, on the small part of it's exposed heatsink with a high wattage soldering iron. As soon as the heatsink (which is also how the unit is mounted to the board, by solder) gets hot enough to melt the solder, the part will simply slide right off of the board, leaving a new-looking clear area for your new part, after briefly touching the area up with your iron....

The three different wattage versions of the regulator are definitely drop-in replacements for each other(while taking heat dissipation into consideration), and this is pretty much stated by the manufacturer in the fourth paragraph of the part's technical documentation:
http://www.national.com/ds/LM/LM1086.pdf
I've some interest in 2 slot PCI risers, and have tried tranquilPC and also Travla ones, both are "active" as they buffer clocks and a few other things, and have some jumpers. Some PC-builders report problems with passive 2-slot risers, guess it's mostly motherboard/PCI card timing. Mostly the problems are when running the bus at high utilisation.
The so-called "passive" and "active" risers you refer to usually work by rotatiing the IRQ signals for the alternate slot. While this may work for some cards, other cards will not accept this for multiple possible reasons. Since the second slot in the "passive" dual riser card, in essence, "wires itself" as one of the other PCI slots in the motherboard, you would also have a conflict if you happened to plug a card into one of the motherboard's slots that was wired parallel to your riser adapter's second PCI slot. The added length of the circuit board's traces are also an issue for timing, as you noted, even in the presence of simple buffering. A real "active" riser will use a bridge, or "arbiter" chip, which is basically a second PCI bus controller, cascaded on top of your motherboard's existing PCI bridge through one of your PCI slots. It will intelligently manage your additional PCI devices, and actually assign them separate logical locations in the system from your motherboard's other PCI slots. The bridge chips are not expensive in production(the majority of the cost for complex circuits with low parts counts is in the fabrication of the PCB, and not in the parts, unless one or more of the parts are rare or specialized), and some of them only cost a few dollars. If one were to get a circuit board produced for PCI expansion, surely it would be worth the few dollars(euros?) for the proper implementation... :D

Hitek
 
Montana
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Mon Aug 29, 2005 5:23 pm

Hitek146 I have read the info on the drop-in replacement regulators, but is the circuit board tracing able to handel the extra current?

Which Regulator handels which PCI socket on the card. I have looked at it and my eyes are not what they use to be. SMALL traces!
 
jman12
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PSU

Wed Sep 21, 2005 10:12 pm

Hi
I modified an RB14 for use in an rb230
i removed the 1st requlator and added 1 of these http://www.meanwell.com/search/SKA15/default.htm
now 1st 2 mini pci's are getting power from the new dc-dc convertor
and inturn i power the new dc-dc from the poe 48v
this is easy just connect to j4 and j5

Regards
jman
 
Montana
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Tue Sep 27, 2005 8:09 pm

Hitek146
If your still around I have some questions about the WPN20R12S03 wiring.
I got one but no documentation on it. I see that there is a "Trim" and a "on/off" but Im not sure if I need to wire these or not. Thanks
Montana

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