Drone racing Power over ethernet, POE?
Posted: Fri Sep 29, 2017 3:51 pm
I’ve been asked to help with a drone racing wireless lap counting system.
The detection is wireless as they pass the gates, but the resulting data and power is via cabling. Cat5 for data and hopefully dc power for the 5ea gate sensor packages.
Each gate package will have a pie3, a nano, and 8ea 5.8g receivers.
The guess I’ve been given for required power, is 5v at 3A per gate package at up to 100ft of cat5 run for each of the 5.
Maybe 12vdc or higher and regulated to 5v at each pack?
Doing some searching and quick math, I’m not sure the cat5 can deliver the required current over a 100ft max distance, especially if we have 100f days?
Some will be shorter runs, all going to a single station collecting data, but 100ft seems to cover most max runs.
If anyone has dealt with Poe or racing setups, I could use some ideas.
Local batteries work I’m told, but can go dead at the wrong times if not closely monitored.
It would seem that one solution would be cat5 with a attached second set or larger wires for power only if it exists. A second run of cat5 or wire for power only could be added, but not being bonded to the cat5, it would require taping it every 6” to make it manageable. Tape gets sticky and dirty.
Being a portable system, buried cables aren’t an option.
I’m not even sure the RJ45 connector pins can handle that much current?
The Poe adapters are expensive and are also limited on current I’m reading.
No diy options I can find so far?
One other option would be Ethernet over coax?
The combo cable has 75 ohm coax and a molded in 2ea 18ga wire pair.
The drop of 18g at 12v 3A over 100ft is about 3.82v calculated. Using a boost regulator, the starting supplied voltage could be made 16vdc.
All the package electronics run on 5v or less, so the 12v is regulated to 5v.
Ideas welcome
Thanks
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
The detection is wireless as they pass the gates, but the resulting data and power is via cabling. Cat5 for data and hopefully dc power for the 5ea gate sensor packages.
Each gate package will have a pie3, a nano, and 8ea 5.8g receivers.
The guess I’ve been given for required power, is 5v at 3A per gate package at up to 100ft of cat5 run for each of the 5.
Maybe 12vdc or higher and regulated to 5v at each pack?
Doing some searching and quick math, I’m not sure the cat5 can deliver the required current over a 100ft max distance, especially if we have 100f days?
Some will be shorter runs, all going to a single station collecting data, but 100ft seems to cover most max runs.
If anyone has dealt with Poe or racing setups, I could use some ideas.
Local batteries work I’m told, but can go dead at the wrong times if not closely monitored.
It would seem that one solution would be cat5 with a attached second set or larger wires for power only if it exists. A second run of cat5 or wire for power only could be added, but not being bonded to the cat5, it would require taping it every 6” to make it manageable. Tape gets sticky and dirty.
Being a portable system, buried cables aren’t an option.
I’m not even sure the RJ45 connector pins can handle that much current?
The Poe adapters are expensive and are also limited on current I’m reading.
No diy options I can find so far?
One other option would be Ethernet over coax?
The combo cable has 75 ohm coax and a molded in 2ea 18ga wire pair.
The drop of 18g at 12v 3A over 100ft is about 3.82v calculated. Using a boost regulator, the starting supplied voltage could be made 16vdc.
All the package electronics run on 5v or less, so the 12v is regulated to 5v.
Ideas welcome
Thanks
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro