Extending the Reach: PoE Technology for Long-Distance Connectivity

PoE extenders create a revolutionary solution for the longstanding 100-meter cable distance limitation by utilizing higher voltage power to boost data signals and extend network reach without sacrificing performance.

• How standard data signals degrade over copper cable due to electrical resistance
• Why 100 meters (330 feet) became the industry standard distance limitation
• Technical explanation of how PoE extenders act as "data truck stops" to refresh signals
• Importance of proper installation techniques including waterproofing for outdoor deployment
• Critical considerations for voltage drop calculations across extended distances
• Real-world applications including security cameras, WiFi access points, and smart buildings
• Evolution of PoE technology with multi-port options for simplified infrastructure expansion
• Grounding best practices to avoid signal interference and ground loops
• Outdoor installation requirements including proper cable selection and enclosure sealing

Check out the PoE calculator app available in both the App Store and Google Play Store to help determine voltage drop and maximum distance calculations for your specific installation. Join us Wednesday nights at 6pm Eastern for live Q&A sessions across all major social platforms.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to PoE Extenders
• 8:37 The Technology Behind PoE Extenders
• 16:48 Installation Best Practices
• 24:11 Outdoor Applications and Water Resistance
• 31:36 Grounding and Surge Protection
• 36:44 Real-World Applications and Use Cases
• 43:09 Smart Buildings and IoT Integration
• 51:04 Closing Thoughts and Resources

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey Wiremonkeys, welcome to another episode of let's Talk Cabling. On this episode, we're talking extended distances again, but this time we're talking about a device.

Speaker 2: 0:11

Welcome to let's Talk Cabling, the award-winning podcast where knowledge is power and the low-voltage industry connects. Hosted by Chuck Bowser, rcdd. We're here to empower installers, designers and industry pros with the tips, stories and best practices you need to stay ahead. From copper to fiber, standards to innovation, this is the show that keeps you plugged into success. So grab your tools, turn up the volume and let's talk cabling.

Speaker 1: 0:46

Welcome to the show where we can tackle the tough questions submitted by installers, estimators, project managers, technicians, customers, even IT personnel. We are connecting at the human level so that we can connect the world. If you're watching this show on YouTube, would you mind hitting the subscribe button and that bell button to be notified when new content? Thank you, wednesday night, 6 pm, eastern Standard Time. What are you doing? You know I do a live stream on TikTok, linkedin, instagram, YouTube, everywhere that I can put it out to where you get to ask your favorite RCDD. And you know that's me your favorite RCDD questions on installation, design, certification, project management, estimation. I even do career path questions, but I can hear you now, chuck, I'm driving my truck at Wednesday nights at 6 pm. I don't want to get into an accident. Take a breath. I record them and you can watch them at your convenience. And also, while this show is free and will always remain free, if you find value in this content, would you click on that QR code right there? You can buy me a cup of coffee. You can buy me a cup of coffee. You can even schedule a 15-minute one-on-one call with me after hours. Of course, you can also buy let's Talk, cablewing t-shirts on Amazon. Those are all ways that you can support the show.

Speaker 1: 2:13

So, as I said, you know I've done a couple shows recently on extended distances. That seems to be the hot thing right now in our industry, which kind of funny because it's been around for a while. So I just did a show on extended distance, I'm working on another one and I happened to come across a post from one of my good friends about a new POE extender. I was like what, what's that? So I had to call him out and say, hey, you want to come on the show to talk about it. And he says sure, now, some of you old people have been listening to me for a while. I might recognize this guy, but for those of you who don't, tyler, welcome back to the show. How are you doing, my friend?

Speaker 4: 2:47

Chuck, good, how are you doing? It's a pleasure to be back on the show, always happy to talk to your audience. We love you guys out in the field. You guys make what we do possible.

Speaker 1: 2:58

Absolutely so. For those people who are new and may not have seen the episode or two that you might have been on before, why don't you just give us a short intro? Who is Tyler? And?

Speaker 2: 3:12

why should we listen?

Speaker 4: 3:13

to you. My name is Tyler Andrews. I'm the CEO of PoE Texas. I've been the CEO of PoE Texas since 2016. We're based right here in Austin, texas, and we do all things power over Ethernet. That's what we do. If it doesn't have power over Ethernet, we don't do it, and so we study PoE. We're experts in PoE. That's the thing we know. So when Chuck has a question about PoE, he comes to me and I love answering his questions, because you always have good questions, chuck. You always test me and make sure I really know what I'm talking about, and so I love it. It makes me so excited.

Speaker 1: 3:51

Yes, yes. My dad always used to say you know, how smart you are is not the number of degrees you have, it's the people that you surround yourself with, and I surround myself with around people way smarter than me. Hence you, I'll take it. There you go, there you go, Even though even though you know I got to get this dig in, Even though you like beef brisket better than pork barbecue. But we can still be friends. We can still be friends.

Speaker 4: 4:22

The offer still stands. A barbecue challenge. Chuck and tyler, head to head for your audience. I'll bring a brisket, you bring some pork and we'll see how we do I'll probably take you up on that.

Speaker 1: 4:36

But let me get a new smoker. Remember I was telling you at the big city conference that mine kind of died on me and and then I had to go get a temporary one because I already had a group of couples coming over for game night. And so I had to go get a temporary one because I already had a group of couples coming over for game night and so I had to go buy a cheap one because I didn't want to go buy a good one right off the gate because I'm still doing my research. And it was a cheap $99 one from Lowe's. And while everybody at the thing said, oh man, this is a great barbecue, I was like, yeah, nah, not my barbecue. I was like, yeah, nah, not my best, I don't like it. But you know, they say the chef is always their worst critic. So there you go. That's a future show. Maybe we should start thinking about that for next Bixie Winter Conference, maybe doing an off-site meet and do something like that. That would be cool.

Speaker 4: 5:28

And you could call it the off-site M-E-A-T meet. The off-site meet, like it and invite the audience man, invite everybody out there to come on out. If they come to Bixie or if they're in the Central Florida area, just do a party in your backyard and eat barbecue.

Speaker 1: 5:46

Yep, I like it, I like it, I like it. We'll have to talk about that after the show and maybe, maybe, do some some preliminary planning, for that Sounds really cool. So let's talk about this POE standard. What's the biggest innovation behind it?

Speaker 4: 6:02

The biggest innovation behind it. Well, like you said, the technology hasn't changed very much, and I'm happy to go through the technology, what it is, how it works. It hasn't changed very much in terms of how it does what it does. What we've been able to do is we've been able to scale up the power and scale down the power to hit the right price point and the right technology or the right amount of power that you need. So, when it comes to POE, it's all about the power, and what power you're sending is what the real question you need to answer. So that's, that's what's come out. We've got a much more affordable, smaller form factor, and then we've got our more pro-grade metal enclosure, higher power grade version of theirs. We have those two extender versions, both rated for outdoors Right, just because we find customers really appreciate the outdoor equipment.

Speaker 1: 7:02

I guess I really kind of missed that step there. I tripped up the deck per se because I went right straight to the device and I didn't kind of tell people what the heck this thing was. Right, it's a device that you put on the end of the cable, right? So if you have a customer that wants to extend the PoE, extend their data out to longer distances, this is a device that you can put on the cable instead of going with one of the other solutions, like the hybrid fiber solution, which is a viable option for the right scenario and stuff. But this is kind of a different type of solution. So that's what we're talking about. I kind of jumped right over that. That was my fault, right? So why don't you give us just the quick 30-second view? Because when I saw this, I've seen POE extenders before, but this one is just really cool. So why don't you give us just the high-level description of what this POE extender is?

Speaker 4: 7:52

Sure, let's talk about what POE extenders are and why they're important. So what ends up happening is you guys out there, you do wiring. You know the hard and fast rule 100 meters for 330 feet. That's as far as I'm going to use air quotes here. That's as far as POE can go. Why is that? And I'm going to throw up a little something here to help answer that question. I'm going to throw up a little something here to help answer that question.

Speaker 4: 8:29

Sorry, wrong one. There we go, let's see if this one comes up. 100 meters, 330 feet. Why is that? Why is that a limit that is so set in stone? And frankly, you know, I got to admit, when I first found out about the 100 meter, 330 foot limit, I was a little disappointed. I'm like this is the Internet, it spans the entire planet. Why on earth Can we do? We have to live in this realm of 100 meters or 330 feet? Well, let me get into the technical details, because I'm a technical guy and I love doing this.

Speaker 4: 9:06

So what ends up happening is when you send a data signal over copper cables, you actually send little tiny pulses of electricity and the data is a little bit of a 2.5 volt pulse up is a 1. A 1-volt to 2.5-volt pulse up is a 1. And then when it drops back down to a negative 1 or a negative 2.5, that's a 0. And it's just these little pulses up and down running along the wire and when you get the pulses up and a pulse down, just two like a 0 and a 1, you get a bite, a bit. Sorry, you get a bit and I got a little. I got a little tip for you here. Did you know that when and when a zero and a one, when the bites get together and spend enough time together and are close enough together, become mommy and daddy, bits become bites.

Speaker 1: 10:05

Eight bits make a bite a family, a family of bites so that's how you get a bite.

Speaker 4: 10:12

You get eight bits of zeros and ones to get a bite. But what ends up happening is those little 2.5 volt maximum little signals as they run down the copper, the copper has a little bit of resistance and that resistance shaves off just a little bit more of that signal. And the IEEE standard and it is pronounced IEEE, not I-E-E-E, in case you guys are the IEEE standard says that in order for it to be an IEEE network switch, that little 2.5 volt signal has to be able to travel on Cat 5 cable. Cat 5, cat 5E, cat 6, has to be able to travel at least 330 feet or 100 meters. And so all the manufacturers out there, myself included, we design our switches to be able to send the data transmission packet at least with clear consistency, 330 feet or 100 meters. But and then what ends up happening is that power shaves off as you get down at the other end. But the reality is the PoE that goes on the same cable. It can go a lot further, it can go a kilometer by itself, because it's not 2.5 volts, it's 56 volts. So it's sending 56 volts down the line. That can travel a kilometer.

Speaker 4: 12:01

So what ends up happening is a PoE extender as a product.

Speaker 4: 12:07

What it does is it uses and I'm going to throw this up there now it uses a tsunami of voltage, 56 volts, to carry the signal. So you basically put your little 2.5 signal volts on top of the 56 volt tsunami and you run it down the wire, you put in your, you splice in your extender. What it does is it uses that 56 volts to make basically a data truck stop where the data can get out, stretch its legs, get a coffee, get a Diet Coke, boost it up Diet Coke, if you're a Diet Coke kind of guy and boost up that 2.5-volt signal and send it on down the line and you can keep doing that until you run out of power. Frankly, 56 volts, you could easily do more than a kilometer. And that's how an extender works, is? It basically acts as a mini switch with one port in that accepts PoE and has one port of PoE out, and that's what an extender does for you. Now there are a bunch of different ways to extend data and I'm sure Chuck talked about the needed hybrid power.

Speaker 1: 13:22

I've covered them, yep, but this is a little different.

Speaker 4: 13:25

Yep, and they've got some switches. There are some switches that you can flip a switch or you can configure it and that switch can go 200, 300, 500 meters. But the key here and there are some guys who do the cables, who are the guys that do the really special cable, like the secret cables, Game changers I love game changers, but those special extender switches and the game changer cables. The problem with those is they can do the 500 meters but the data throughput erodes, meaning they can't do gigabit data. They can only do like 10 megabits at that extended distance and that's very normal.

Speaker 4: 14:12

And if that's all you need for a security camera, maybe that's what makes sense for you. But if you need, you want or need that gigabit data at the end of a 200, 300, 400 meter run, you do need a signal booster or an extender to get you there. So that's where an extender versus a game changer versus an extension switch on copper makes the big difference. Very cool. So that's how the technology works and where it fits into the bigger scheme of game changing cables, extending switches, fiber, hybrid, fiber power.

Speaker 3: 14:51

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Speaker 1: 15:33

listen let me ask you a question and go and clear your your little graphic there, so we can go back oh good call yeah. So let me ask you this question the pu extender is it active or is it passive?

Speaker 4: 15:44

it is an active device now. Well, let me rephrase you can get a passive pu extender. We make one. Very few people want a passive PUE extender. We make one. Very few people want a passive PUE extender. But you would buy a passive PUE extender specifically if you wanted or needed a passive PUE extender. Typically they're 24 volts. They'd be most used by Ubiquiti or Microtik or like Mimosa. If you're in the WISP business. Mimosa has some passive PUE extenders, but you would have to buy specifically a passive poe extender.

Speaker 1: 16:17

Your average extender it's active yeah, because when you said that, um, that it boosts the voltage up, I'm like, well, that sounds like it's an active device to me, because it's not just going to. There's not a hamster inside the poe extender on the wheel trying to generate electricity. It's electricity. It doesn't boost electricity unless there's power coming into it from somewhere. Right, what it does is it?

Speaker 4: 16:39

uses the PoE, uses a tiny bit of the PoE power and uses that to boost the data signal. So to be clear, like if I'm doing a, if I'm using a GPOE extender or a GAT extender, you get by IEEE standard at the first point of the extender I should get. If you're using IEEE 802.3 BT power, I should get 72 watts incoming on my GPOE extender and out of the GPOE extender I will be getting something like 70 watts and you'll lose about two watts of power with each extender you drop in the line. Typically that's not that big a deal if you have like PoE plus or PoE plus plus. If you're trying to use just a regular PoE extender, that might become problematic if you only have 12 watts. When you've got 30 watts or 25 watts and 72 watts, typically you can get lots of extra runs for your end device.

Speaker 1: 17:44

So I'm assuming this PoE extender you put on the end of the cable. Is there a maximum distance? Does that PoE extender have to be at or below the the 328?

Speaker 4: 17:58

yes, it must be somewhere between zero and 328 feet. You have to install it in there somewhere. You can't go like 370 feet and put it in extender and and be like why isn't it working? It needs to come in within that hundred meter range, right?

Speaker 1: 18:18

It's garbage in, garbage out, right, so I'm assuming this could be anything right. It could be Cat 5E, Cat 6, Cat 6A cable, correct.

Speaker 4: 18:25

It can be. Now I'm going to give you some feedback. Most people don't recommend Cat 5E, especially if you're going to try and run long distances. Right, most people we know either cat 5e thicker gauge cable, which is what a game changer really is, or, uh, cat 6 cable that's 23 gauge. So think about larger gauge wires for better, better data integrity. But you can do cat 5e. Cat5 by itself is basically out. Nobody uses Cat5. Most owners, I know, don't really want Cat5e, but it is an option if you're using it.

Speaker 1: 19:01

Yeah, our industry unfortunately calls Cat5e Cat5 all the time. I don't know why it does, but it drives me crazy and it leads to confusion. But there's actually two types of cat 5e and that's why I threw cat 5e in that list, right, cause you got regular 24 gauge cat 5e and then there's also a 22, a 23, 23 gauge or 22 gauge cat 5e as well for power. So that's correct. So that's why that's why. That's why that's why I lumped it in there. But yeah, yeah, I would always start off with like a Cat6 or Cat6A. So I put this PoE extender at you know, 295 feet, because that's where my permanent link length is. How much further is this PoE device going to send the data and the power?

Speaker 4: 19:46

Another 100 meters or 330 feet, 328 feet, so it'll boost it for the full next range of a cat cable.

Speaker 1: 19:56

Okay, okay, and that could be inside plant or outside plant, correct?

Speaker 4: 20:01

Yes, a couple of tips though. Make sure, if you are installing this device outside, get an outside rated one. You and I have talked about it a lot, about water intrusion big issue, and speaking of which, uh, make sure you're using outside rated cable. You don't want moisture seeping into because this is an active device, like you pointed out. It's a proper switch, right. You don't want to use regular indoor cable that might allow water to seep through the shielding. And then capillary, do capillary action up into this extender. If water gets into this extend, inside the extender, it's rated on the outside, but once it gets inside it'll erode or corrode some of the the equipment, some of the circuitry inside there, cause it to go out. It'll stop working. We see it occasionally People send one back oh, your stupid thing is broken, and then we open it up and water runs out, we're like well, we'll still take care of you.

Speaker 4: 21:02

We love you because we want you to be very happy, but don't get water inside.

Speaker 1: 21:09

Yeah, I deal with the same thing with my day job a lot. They send us back stuff all the time. And yeah, I deal with the same thing with my day job a lot. They send us back stuff all the time and there's obvious signs of abuse sometimes and you're like, yeah, you didn't install this the way that we taught you to install this, but it happens. Because you're a company, you want to maintain a good customer relationship, because they'll buy future ones. If you take care of them, they'll buy more in the future.

Speaker 3: 21:37

So you'll definitely make the money back, even on giving a warranty on one that's clearly outside of the warranty sometimes. Hey friends, I want to tell you about a great organization, tech Knowledge Worldwide, an active community of tech professionals dedicated to elevating our industry and each other. It's the real deal and I'm grateful to be part of this community. It's the real deal and I'm grateful to be part of this community. Their annual tech conference is coming up April 23rd and 24th in Nashville, tennessee, and will feature amazing speakers, workshops and even Bixie continuing education credits. Stay up to date and lock in your spot now at techfestorg. That's T-E-K-F-E-S-Torg. I encourage all my low voltage followers to consider joining to see if they want a seat at TKW's table too. All are welcome to learn, grow and see what putting community over competition can do. Go to techfestorg for more information.

Speaker 1: 22:35

Let's talk about installation and best practices, right.

Speaker 4: 22:38

Yes.

Speaker 1: 22:39

What should an installer keep in mind when they are going to be putting in a POE extender?

Speaker 4: 22:46

Great question. I'm going to pause here. I have some installation videos.

Speaker 1: 22:51

So here's the videos that Tyler was talking about, so make sure that you watch it on the YouTube channel so you can see the video as well. Thank you.

Speaker 4: 23:51

So, to add to what we said in the videos, the main points are use good, outside rated cable. Don't don't go cheap on it. Don't use indoor cable if you're installing these outside. And then the most important thing is use a wrench to tighten the water seal glands. You're going to be so tempted just to hand tighten it. Look man, that feels real tight. But we do water testing. We actually take these guys, tighten them and drop them in a bucket of water and let them run for a week or two I think we were doing like two months fully submerged in water. They're not technically rated for full submersion because there's a whole bunch of different factors, but we submerge them because we want to make sure you have good quality product. But what you need to do is you need to get that guy a good grip in your hand and actually use a wrench to tighten the watertight lands onto the cat cable. And that's just really, really important to do.

Speaker 4: 24:54

That's probably the biggest problem that you run into. Normally you're not going to have it. I mean, that's no configuration. You just plug PoE into one side, plug your next run into the other side, tighten it. Obviously. Do your continuity checks. That's another thing and then the only other thing that I might suggest is problematic, since we're doing 802.3BT type PoE, the one area that we run into occasionally are LLDP devices. I've got my own opinion and I apologize, I'm probably going to offend some of you.

Speaker 1: 25:32

You're going to send some very nasty, nasty chats about okay, I love those comments because it gets it, gets the, it gets the views on the on the video, so let's say it away.

Speaker 4: 25:44

LLDP is a terrible idea for POE, absolutely the worst idea for POE on the PSE side or switch side, but especially on the PD side. Lldp terrible idea.

Speaker 1: 26:00

Before you go on, let me do something really quick. Acronym guy right PSE power sourcing equipment. That's the equipment that puts out the power PD power device.

Speaker 4: 26:10

Now the LLP powered device, now the LLP. Lldp is called Link Layer Data Protocol, and Link Layer Data Protocol by itself is not a bad thing. It's actually a really good thing. What you typically use Link Layer Data Protocol for is identifying devices on a network. So when you plug in your computer into your firewall or into your layer to manage switch, it is the link layer data protocol that reaches out and says what's your name, and it responds back and says my name is desktop123, 4. And that's great, because what it allows you to do is map your network really well.

Speaker 4: 26:57

Well, unfortunately, some engineer thought it would be a great idea to say well then, why don't we use that to negotiate PoE, since we're doing that? Well, it creates a problem for you because LLDP requires the end device, the PD, the power device, to boot on 15 watts of power. Whatever that may be, if it's a giant heavy camera or it's a light or anything it would require that device to boot onto 15 watts of power. Spin up a processor, have the processor send a fully qualified data communication, packet up the line to the switch and say oh, mr Switch, I need actually 60 watts of power to do my full function. And then the switch goes, oh okay, and then it sends 60 watts of power. The problem is this adds a lot of and it adds a lot of extra hardware and expense into the equipment and so for something that doesn't really add any benefits, because the IEEE standard for PoE and everybody's got IEEE chips doesn't require the link layer communication. Chips Doesn't require the link layer communication. It does one negotiation at the time to allow you to power up the full device with the first negotiation. It's a much simpler situation.

Speaker 4: 28:21

So anyway, that's my vote. But the problem that you could run into is people like Aruba. No, I'm going to rewind. I don't think Aruba does this, it's Meraki. We have run into a problem with Meraki and this becomes a problem for any extender basically on the market, meraki or any kind of device that does link layer data protocol, poe. It doesn't work very well on an extender because it requires an extender that itself does link layer protocol and either the extender or the switch and or the sorry, the injector or the uh, the switch it's got to doLVP and it doesn't always transmit through your extenders or your injectors very well. So there is that one case. It's an edge case, I'd say. I've seen less than 2% or 3% of our customers have this issue, but it's one that I'll bring up.

Speaker 1: 29:29

I'm glad you went into that, because I'm a knuckle-dragging cable guy. I don't do network protocols. I pull the cable, I terminate, I put the tester on, I get green lights. Good, Chuck gets paid, Chuck goes home. So you start talking about network layer protocols. So that's how I go to professionals like you. So you said that you took this PoE and you submerged it in a thing of water for long periods of time. So that obviously means it's IP67 rated. For those who don't know, IP67 means it can sustain three feet of water for up to 30 minutes. And I think you said you had yours in for like two months or something right?

Speaker 4: 30:09

Yes, we wanted to know. 110. I wanted to be able to look you chuck in the eye and say, yes, if you put this out in your back patch in florida, in the ground, um, with some level of protection.

Speaker 1: 30:27

So you know especially since we just got flooded out by the hurricane and we were underwater for six weeks. So there you go right. Exactly Because it's outside, how are you handling surge protection?

Speaker 4: 30:42

It is surge protected as a device and there is a grounding lug for surge protection. But now we're getting into proper earthing. Make sure you're using a good surge-protected injector or switch and then make sure you're properly grounding the surge protective device, whether it's the switch or an injector. But I'm going to give you a big warning here. You and I have talked about this before. So the right, some people look at grounding and they go. If a little grounding is good, a lot of grounding must be better. That's not necessarily true when it comes to data communication. You need to be careful that you only properly ground and surge, surge protect and ground. You can surge protect anywhere, but surge protect and ground at one location in a network for communication signal.

Speaker 4: 31:46

Because if you don't, so let's say I do this. Let's say I've got a switch that's got a grounding lug on the back of the switch and I ground that in my back of my house or my office and the IDF or the MDF, and I ground that really well and effectively house or my office and the IDF or the MDF, and I ground that really well and effectively. And then I run grounded cable. By the way, grounding does nothing if you don't run grounded cable, which would mean shielded cable.

Speaker 4: 32:15

Shielded cable good point. So if you're not, if you don't run shielded cable and you don't terminate the shield to the RJ45, you really don't have shielded cable, right, you just have a big antenna, you just have a big antenna. But what ends up happening is, if you do have a shielded cable and you do properly ground it at both ends, like terminate the shield to each end of the RJ45, each end of the RJ45. And then, if I ground the end device as well as the switch, you create something called a ground loop, an earth ground loop, and when the data starts transmitting, it actually generates noise on the shield wire that will actually interrupt the data signal.

Speaker 1: 32:59

So yeah, ground loops are a huge problem. But you always want to make sure that you install the bonding and grounding system per the the ANSI standards. And the ANSI standard tells us shielded cable both sides have to be bonded to a ground. So just just so you know that's in there, it's. It says both sides have to be bonded to a ground. So I know that kind of goes against exactly what you just said, but that's what it says. Actually, take it back. That's what it says in the TDMM. I have to go look it up in the ANSI standards to see if it's in the ANSI standards.

Speaker 4: 33:33

You know the standards much better than I do, chuck. All I know is the physics of what's going to happen If you ground both ends a properly shielded and grounded network cable. You're going to create noise on the circuit that is going to negate the effect of the shield. You certainly can.

Speaker 1: 33:51

You certainly can create. You certainly can create a ground loop, but if the bonding and grounding system is done correctly and it's also tied into the electrical service ground where allowed by Coke is not not every age J will allow that. But now you have one reference to ground, no matter where you plug into that system. So there are ways around it. But ground loops can still cause issues. They certainly can. So, putting in this POE extender, do they have to use UTP cables, shielded cable? Is there any special type of cables they need to use utp cable, shielded cable? Is there any special type of cables they need?

Speaker 4: 34:26

to use um outdoor rated we talked about. It needs to be outdoor rated cable um shielding for the the device to function by itself. No, just a just a straight up um cable, straight up cable. Sorry, my brain is freezing here. It is just a UTP cable. You don't have to have the shielding. The shielding is really for noise and ground protection, like lightning strikes or surge protection, but for the device to function you don't have to have it.

Speaker 1: 34:59

Let's kind of shift the conversation and talk about real-world applications. So you've already mentioned one using it to extend like cameras or something like that. So what kind of industries or projects would use this type of POE extender?

Speaker 4: 35:14

I think by and large, cameras, exterior Wi-Fi access points also come in there and those Wi-Fi access points are the ones that really need the gigabit data. A lot of cameras, you can get away with 10 meg and you're fine, but exterior mounted Wi-Fi access points really important to do If you're doing a big array. You're working with a greenhouse company. They wanted to make sure that their entire outdoor lot had good wifi because customers were buying and checking out over the wifi. They were using extenders.

Speaker 1: 35:50

That was a good extender situation, sorry you actually bring up great points because you know, like you said, just for a camera, you know cameras they're 100 meg, they're very low bandwidth most of them not all of them, but most of them it's not until you start getting to wireless access points that you can start really want to drive that 1 gig, 2.5 gig, maybe even up to 10 gig.

Speaker 1: 36:18

And that's where I think this PoE extender really kind of shines, because, compared to other things Right, yes, and when you mentioned the, when you mentioned the I think you said it was a greenhouse or a nursery or something there's a lot of businesses now that are shifting away from I don't understand. Well, I mean, I understand why, but I don't agree with it. But there's a lot of industries shifting away or shifting towards doing everything on a wireless network, and that's okay for some things. But the cashier who's sitting at the very front of the greenhouse, their iPad connect to Stripe to process payments and stuff. That's maybe not something you want going over a Wi-Fi signal, Because Wi-Fi signals they're susceptible to RFI and EMI and they're not as secure as a hard-run cable. But some scenarios you can't do that just because of length and stuff like that.

Speaker 4: 37:15

Exactly, and I'm a PoE guy, I'm always a proponent. If I can drop a wire to it and good network cable it's. The contractor assures you this is within 100 meters and you go out there and you're pulling the cable. Too often and you go out there and you're pulling your cable too often. Yep, you look at the.

Speaker 3: 38:09

You look at the, the wire at your count and you're like wait a minute, yeah yeah, this is 340 feet.

Speaker 4: 38:12

Yeah, what's going on?

Speaker 4: 38:14

yeah, and let's just say it happens more than once exactly and I'll guarantee you none of them are gonna say they're gonna be like, well, just run it. Nobody's gonna say nice things about you in six months because you've done the continuity, it works. The data when there's not much data throughput, it works just fine, but nobody's gonna go. You know, chuck chuck did us a big, a good solid, because he told us it was 350 feet but he still ran it. And it's not working now, but he still put it in. I don't know if you think anybody's ever going to say that about you.

Speaker 1: 38:46

No, they're going to be yelling at you. Why didn't you tell me it wouldn't work at 350 feet?

Speaker 4: 38:51

That's what they're going to say Exactly, and you're going to go well, so-and-so. Well, don't listen to so-and-so. He's a moron, why would you listen to him? So when you're running into those situations where you need just an extra 10, 20, 30 feet for the price of an extender, it saves you the extra truck rolls and a quick hey, you know, mr Owner, I'm just going to throw this in there. It's a small little change order because the run is a little bit longer than expected. This will save you from headaches in the future. That is the real big win on this is to do that. So, even if you're, they really come into play when you just need that little extra for one or two runs.

Speaker 1: 39:37

A good technician. Once a customer shows them where the beginning run is and where the end of the run is, theoretically they should be walking it off anyway. And as soon as they realize that's beyond the maximum length of 295 feet for a permanent link, that's when they need to address it right then and there and say well, hold on, this is too long. We need to figure out alternate methods. You know, poe extender, game changer, cable, hybrid fiber copper solution. You know this is not your typical run because of that distance. And then I've always found that when it comes to customers, if you help them, customers will make the right decisions if you lead them down the right road. Right, you just got to give them enough information to make the decision for themselves, and so you know this.

Speaker 1: 40:23

Actually just thought of a question. Just thought of a question because I mentioned hybrid copper fiber solutions A lot of times. With those beyond extended distances, you got to calculate voltage drop, right, and I'm thinking tell me if I'm wrong. I'm applying the knowledge that you just laid upon me, tyler, because I'm putting a POE extender. It's only going on another 295 feet or 328 for channel. I don't have to calculate voltage drop with a POE extender. Is that correct?

Speaker 4: 40:53

Yes and no. So that's a great question. Chuck, you do need to plan on voltage drop, because voltage drop is real whether you add an extender or not. What you need to these are some important numbers. You need to know the minimum voltage at your end device that IEEE says you have to achieve is 42 volts. If the volts at the end of your run and that doesn't matter how many extenders you put in there, but at the end of your run, and that doesn't matter how many extenders you put in there, but at the end of your run, if it's still a poe device at the end and the voltage is below 42 volts, your end device won't turn on. It. May there's. There's usually a range. People give it a range somewhere between like 41 and 45 volts. But if you go below about 42 volts at the end of your run with all those extenders, that's when you're going to run into a problem and you're not going to power on your POE equipment.

Speaker 1: 41:52

So do you put like a certifier or something on there and measure it Not a certifier, but a POE tester to measure that voltage and confirm okay, yes, this will work. That actually be would actually be a good acceptance test.

Speaker 4: 42:04

Yep, and I know some guys who make a great PoE tester that you could plug in line and see what the voltage is while the equipment is operating. Who? Oh me, there you go, see, see.

Speaker 1: 42:20

There you go.

Speaker 4: 42:20

But if you need to, I'll also throw it out there. We have on the App Store and the Google Play Store a free app that lets you put in how much power you're using, what kind of cat cable you're using, what kind of Pee Wee you have, and it'll calculate for you your voltage drop. Oh, that's cool. So if you know the stuff ahead of time, you can just do a calculation and see whether you have voltage drop. Oh, that's cool. So if you know the stuff ahead of time, you can just do a calculation and see whether you have it up. It'll tell you when your device will run out of PoE power, how long you can go with your PoE cable.

Speaker 1: 42:55

Oh, that's cool. I love free apps that do stuff like that. Let's talk about the future PoE. Since you're, mr, plugged in with PoE, what do you see is going to be the next evolution for PoE and long-distance stuff?

Speaker 4: 43:08

That's a good question. Well, I will share another product. It is a different kind of an extender and one that I think you should know about. How many times have you run your network cables with your PoE in the wall? You had to go through fire stops, you had to make these crazy turns into ceilings, and then you get to the other end, you terminate it and then the client comes up to you and goes this is great, but I need another cable. And you're like no, why am I doing this to myself? Right?

Speaker 4: 43:41

So one of the things that we also do is we have products that let you basically use that network drop with PoE to add network ports at the other end. So remember, I said earlier that PoE extender is a one-to-one port switch. Well, now we've just made it so it's one-to-four ports, so you can run four ports of power and data off of one network cable. And we have units that are meant to be mounted in boxes you know mental cases and some that are mounted right into a single-gang box. It looks like a four patch, a little four port keystone wall plate, one port of poe in and then four ports of power data out, and I think that people love that they find it works really well for them and that both form factors just really fit the option for what you need, but that that's definitely a future development with long-distance PoE that people use.

Speaker 1: 44:48

Absolutely so. Let me ask you this about PoE of Texas, since you're the CEO there. I see I know important people. I know the CEO of PoE of Texas. What are you guys doing to support smart buildings and IoT?

Speaker 4: 45:00

Oh well, we do our whole building intelligence system. So, uh, if you've seen, we have a system called the dent in digital building intelligence and it is the whole system from the poe switch to lights, shades, iot devices. We offer, offer that whole integrated system with hardware, the software, the design support. So if you guys are out there and you're looking at opportunities to say, hey, I'm going to do something, I need to do something crazy with a smart building, we have a platform pre-built for you to attach on all kinds of different things. Obviously we do lighting, we do blinds, shades, smart tint, all over the network cable. We're doing access control smart tint.

Speaker 1: 45:54

What's that smart tint?

Speaker 4: 45:55

ah, that's a fun one. Smart tint is where you've got a pane of glass and when it's turned off it's transparent, looks like normal glass, and then when you turn it on it goes opaque and people use them in homes.

Speaker 4: 46:12

High-end homes love stuff like that where you don't have to have shades on your windows. You can have these big, giant, beautiful, picturesque windows on the front of your house. You don't have that big curtains and shades, but when you want a little privacy you flip a switch, it goes opaque and you can't see into the house anymore.

Speaker 1: 46:30

That's cool. So is it like one big sheet? Because there are some windows that are like the sliding door I'm going to kind of get off subject here but like the sliding glass doors that are big. But here's what I was thinking, cause when you said that I kind of halfway knew what you were talking about. I'm thinking, hey, you know, the podcast studio has got those windows, but they've got the six little panels and I could turn it on. It would be act like a light diffuser. I mean I could use natural lighting and stuff. And it's like so how does how does it come? I mean, is it one big piece or is it multiple little pieces? How would you tie a window together that's got six panels instead of one panel?

Speaker 4: 47:04

You just wire them up together. So basically it can we take a pause and I'll get a sheet for you? Sure, all right, here I am, I'm back. So this is what it looks like in its natural sheet form. It's just got a red and a black wire and then you can get them cut specifically to whatever size your window needs to be to fit. So this guy will fit. Now, if you're really smart, what you do is you buy this with it sandwiched between the layers of the glass, so that when you wash the windows you never have to worry about this film. But you can just buy this film if you already have your windows. You buy this film and this would fit, and then you just mount it on the window and you have to install it like a film and then wire these up to your little power supply and it turns them on and off that's slick, that slick, that is slick, that is slick.

Speaker 1: 48:05

You know, since you started talking about IoT and building automation stuff, poe is heavily involved in. You know, I think one of the founding members of the POE Consortium, right so, and I did have, I just did have the his name has escaped me at the moment the president, ron, a couple of weeks back.

Speaker 4: 48:21

David.

Speaker 1: 48:22

Robinson.

Speaker 4: 48:22

Yeah, dave, thank you, I don't know why his name escaped me, david Robinson on from the POE Consortium.

Speaker 1: 48:26

Yes, it seems to happen. You get old, like me. Things start slipping out of your brains and stuff. So if somebody wanted to get more involved in the POE Consortium, how would they do that?

Speaker 4: 48:45

You could become a member or you could just attend some of the events. So check out poeconsortiumcom. We give the different membership levels, we give the different opportunities and what we do is the POE Consortium has a couple of different, very cool things that it does. One of the things that they have a training committee and one of the things the training committee does that I really like and I participate in every year is something called the POE Symposium or POE Installer Symposium, and that's where we specially invite field people, people who have actually done installations for building and automation and IoT equipment. We invite them into a room.

Speaker 4: 49:25

We all come together and we sit there for one to two days just hearing everything they have to say yep what went well, what didn't go well and, in fact, for those of you who might not know, chuck moderated one of those events for us here in Austin, texas. You need to go back and watch it. If you haven't seen it, chuck put it on his channel. You get to see him talking to IoT people.

Speaker 1: 49:52

Yep, I was invited to do the second one but it conflicted with my training schedule so I couldn't do the second one. And then the P-Wing Consortium didn't I see something? They're going to be at NECA, oh yeah, we attend BICC.

Speaker 4: 50:08

we attend NECA. Check us out at Green Build PeeWee Consortium members. You might be surprised where you find us at different industry events and how many of us there are out there.

Speaker 1: 50:23

Tyler, you're a wealth of knowledge and I always appreciate you coming on and sharing more knowledge. Unfortunately, that 15 pounds of knowledge you dumped on my head 13 pounds fell off the back and is landing on my German Shepherd and laying on the ground behind me, so I'm probably going to have to ask you those questions again. I appreciate you coming on, my friend.

Speaker 4: 50:42

Always a pleasure, chuck. Whenever you need anything, ask you those questions again. I appreciate you coming on, my friend. Always a pleasure, chuck. Whenever you need anything, you let me know I'm here for you.

Speaker 2: 50:47

Thanks for listening to let's Talk Cabling, the award-winning podcast where knowledge is power and the low-voltage industry connects. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share it with your crew. Got questions or ideas for the show? Chuck wants to hear from you. Stay connected, stay informed and always aim for excellence. Until next time, keep those cables clean, your standards high and your future bright. Let's talk cabling empowering the industry, one connection at a time.