POE Hat

[Briarios]

Hey Guys,

I am just doing a Poll to see if there is any interest in having a POE Hat made? As I am thinking about designing a Hat for the A/B+/PI2, the hat will have or hope to have the following items.

a) 802.3af compatible POE device that will have the ability to power the Pi via GPIO Max (2Amps).
b) A second USB based Network controller with extra USB Ports Similar to LAN9512.

What are your thoughts on this? anything to improve on or to suggest, please comment below.

[ktb]

This is the only one I've seen -- http://www.xtronix.co.uk/raspberry-pi-poe.htm

[temmi_hoo]

Hi guys

What a way to start using the forum, I browsed the HW section for interesting add-ons and found immediately something that's relevant for me.

ELL-i open source cooperative is making a PoE splitter HAT-like add-on board for Raspberry Pi B+/2 using the Silvertel Ag9805 module. This gives several Watts worth of 5 Volts for the Raspberry Pi and other hardware.

http://ell-i.org/products/poe-for-raspi/

We are using Ethernet and standard PoE for distributed control systems and we use Raspberry Pi boards for running the control algorithms so that smaller embedded systems can act as more dumb sensors and actuators in a bigger whole.

The design process has been interesting to follow and we're about to launch a crowdsourcing campaign in late May to produce a run of the boards so as to make it decently priced.

[Briarios]

I will have to say that those are nice idea's for getting POE onto the raspberry PI. but while they both do similar jobs in splitting the power from the data and then forwarding the data to the PI's network port, what my idea is to have the data go directly into network IC similar to LAN9512 on the hat itself and use a short USB connection to connect the IC to one usb ports on the PI.

[temmi_hoo]

I will have to say that those are nice idea's for getting POE onto the raspberry PI. but while they both do similar jobs in splitting the power from the data and then forwarding the data to the PI's network port, what my idea is to have the data go directly into network IC similar to LAN9512 on the hat itself and use a short USB connection to connect the IC to one usb ports on the PI.

We at ELL-i are thinking this splitter approach is a first try and then following models could have a integrated network interface. Ideally this NIC is then connected to the Raspberry Pi through the HAT connector.

Anyhow, our first model is basically just a splitter that has a separate intermediate cable between the PoE board and the Raspberry Pi. Something that we have found our approach is unique is that our boards provide the raw unregulated PoE electricity, should you for some reason wish more power than the about 5W.

[shuckle]

I will have to say that those are nice idea's for getting POE onto the raspberry PI. but while they both do similar jobs in splitting the power from the data and then forwarding the data to the PI's network port, what my idea is to have the data go directly into network IC similar to LAN9512 on the hat itself and use a short USB connection to connect the IC to one usb ports on the PI.

Why to leave existing ethernet connection unused and duplicate it in the HAT?

[Briarios]

Why to leave existing ethernet connection unused and duplicate it in the HAT?

Good question. some people would like to use an A+ as a remote device other people would want to use a device with 2 Network interfaces. I would like to cater to both hence why I would like to have a duplicate network interface.

[PiGraham]

It could be interesting, at the right price.

I think this is the reference base price for a POE solution:
£15.70
http://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-LINK-TL-POE2 ... B0038X3RVA

Being 802.3af compliant will be essential in some cases, so that adds value in those applications.
Adding an Ethernet port might add value, but bear in mind that USB/Ethernet adaptors are available super cheap, and low cost switches are available for about £6.

[Briarios]

It could be interesting, at the right price.

I think this is the reference base price for a POE solution:
£15.70
http://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-LINK-TL-POE2 ... B0038X3RVA

Being 802.3af compliant will be essential in some cases, so that adds value in those applications.
Adding an Ethernet port might add value, but bear in mind that USB/Ethernet adaptors are available super cheap, and low cost switches are available for about £6.

Yes I am hoping to see on what people will say about it, as I do believe there is value in having a network ic on the hat and at a reasonable price.

[bobstro]

I could see it being useful for very specific scenarios, but I personally won't need one. The cost of the hat, plus a power injector or PoE-capable switch makes it a bit expensive for my uses.

[Briarios]

I could see it being useful for very specific scenarios, but I personally won't need one. The cost of the hat, plus a power injector or PoE-capable switch makes it a bit expensive for my uses.

I will say having POE won't be for everyone, but there will be some people out there that will like one. I have also been contemplating having it in a kit where you have the hat plus a POE Injector to get you up and running but it will depend on what I can do cost wise as well.

[temmi_hoo]

It could be interesting, at the right price.

I think this is the reference base price for a POE solution:
£15.70
http://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-LINK-TL-POE2 ... B0038X3RVA

Being 802.3af compliant will be essential in some cases, so that adds value in those applications.
Adding an Ethernet port might add value, but bear in mind that USB/Ethernet adaptors are available super cheap, and low cost switches are available for about £6.

I consider 802.3af compliancy or at least compability pretty much essential as that's what the switch integrated solutions use. Price per port for a PoE enabled 100BaseT port is around 10eur in Finland including all taxes. Managed ports are a bit more. Sorry, the link is in Finnish but it's the baseline.

Separate switch and injector are way more expensive. The TP-Link injector linked above is not even 802.3af but a kind of PoE-like poor man solution and still ends up costing more.

Also, http://ell-i.org/products/poe-for-raspi/ is having progress and we're about to launch a crowdsourcing campaign in a week or so. You can follow our progress at http://ell-i.org/blog/ if you're interested. We will ship worldwide direct from manufacturer in China.

[PiGraham]

Price per port for injection for a basic switch seems to be around £6 + POE splitter per port. To compete on cost with the cheap non-compliant injector/splitter from TPLink the POE hat would have to sell for £10.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/D-Link-8-Port-G ... B004FJSSTW £50 8 port.

For applications where people want lots of devices separate injector/splitter is undesirable, but for many maker/hobbyist uses it will be fine.

If you can deliver a 802.3af compliant POE solution at €10 per port (injection, HAT and PSU) that would be very good value. I suspect you are looking at something more than €30 per port as an overall solution.

[PiGraham]

The other price point, for 802.3af compliant splitter is this
http://www.comms-express.com/products/t ... tAodHxsAyg
£9.22 Inc VAT
This is a bit less compact and not as neat to connect to the Pi, but does what your POE HAT does.

Of course a higher price for the HAT doesn't mean it won't sell.

[temmi_hoo]

Price per port for injection for a basic switch seems to be around £6 + POE splitter per port. To compete on cost with the cheap non-compliant injector/splitter from TPLink the POE hat would have to sell for £10.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/D-Link-8-Port-G ... B004FJSSTW £50 8 port.

For applications where people want lots of devices separate injector/splitter is undesirable, but for many maker/hobbyist uses it will be fine.

If you can deliver a 802.3af compliant POE solution at €10 per port (injection, HAT and PSU) that would be very good value. I suspect you are looking at something more than €30 per port as an overall solution.

Ah yes. The ten euros per port are for the switch end, so the device/splitter end have their own costs. Currently it seems that the total cost at cheapest 802.3af per port is around 20eur, including the switch.

Sadly our boards will have to be more expensive but then they're more compact and more hackable

[temmi_hoo]

Sadly our boards will have to be more expensive but then they're more compact and more hackable

So, our campaign went on just today:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/rasp ... oe-shield/

We named it a shield since it does not conform to HAT spec in two regards:
- our Ethernet connectors are directly above Raspberry Pi USB and Ethernet connectors
- our board does not have any EPROM id because we want everybody to put their proper HATs on top of our shield

Last weekend we tried to build things using this at the Helsinki Hacklab and managed to do:
- PoE Raspberry Pi sound system using OpenELEC and small USB powered loudspeakers
- PoE web server (easy pie this)
- PoE central home automation server running ELL-i Site Controller software (it's Node.js so really easy)
- PoE Remote camera broadcasting MJPEG via Videolan server (VLC)
- PoE 3D Printer job controller and printer manager using Octoprint

For PoE PSE side we have been using various switches and midspan injectors not limited to:
- Cisco
- Juniper
- Zyxel
- Phi Hong
- D-Link

All in all we're happy as birds and somewhat exhausted.

[Bruny]

I will have to say that those are nice idea's for getting POE onto the raspberry PI. but while they both do similar jobs in splitting the power from the data and then forwarding the data to the PI's network port, what my idea is to have the data go directly into network IC similar to LAN9512 on the hat itself and use a short USB connection to connect the IC to one usb ports on the PI.

Why to leave existing ethernet connection unused and duplicate it in the HAT?

I think this can finally answer that

http://www.nevron.eu/products/iptv-acce ... et-top-box

[ertresvag]

a) 802.3af compatible POE device that will have the ability to power the Pi via GPIO Max (2Amps).

This is nice, but there are some 802.3af splitters out there at a low price. You can not connect then to the RPi's 40 pins connector, but they do the job if you make a 3,5 mm jack to micro USB cable.

b) A second USB based Network controller with extra USB Ports Similar to LAN9512.

Don't do this unless you can give us 1 Gb/sek Ethernet.

Regards Magne.

[Bruny]

cheaper USB hub could be used for certain MikroTik(24V) and Ubiquiti(24V/48V) passive PoE routers.
Safety

919A2176
not convenient current fully compliant active solutions

[orion_jb2001]

I run an ADSB tracker with my PI3 B+ up an antennae pole, utilising network cable to power the PI up the pole, transferring the data to the WWW via network cable, eliminating HUGELY signal loss via previous coax cable set up and none of which could be done without POE. I have currently a PI supply POE hat, which is working with the PI3 B+ but the foundations design will be much slicker, eliminating 1 lot of RJ45 cable in the current set up setup, by the power and network options will go straight into the RJ45 port with the PI, not as is now, the network cable going into the hat mounted on the top and then a RJ45 down to the PI to power it.

[whysguy52]

This is a great idea but I desperately want them NOT to block the GPIO pins!!! I plan on using them with PoE! Why block them anyway? It may not make sense to you but it does to me (especially for my project) but that's also the point of the pi is to let people create their own projects and solutions but this will limit that. People come up with all kinds or reasons to do stuff but I don't understand why the GPIO pins always get blocked or never get love!

PLEASE DO NOT BLOCK THE GPIO PINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've seen the images of the Hat and they are currently blocking the board but there must be enough space to reroute those traces away from it and allow for a ribbon cable to plug in.