Wireless Unit Power PoE Camera Directly?

1. I still believe in keeping wireless bridges and cameras separate versus all-in-one.

2. Have you looked at Ubiquiti's PoE adapter/extender that converts 48vPoE to 24vPoE?

I'm surprised they don't put these adapters more in front because as you and many other's, I've long wished we could power the bridges using standard PoE switches and was very happy when I found out they had these.

Luis, thanks for sharing those adapters.

As for outdoor cameras with integrated wireless, the main risk is distance/range. Fredrik, are you OK with only getting very limited distances from such cameras? If so, there are a handful of outdoor integrated wireless cameras, but they are consumer / SOHO type devices.

Ubiquitis Tough-Switch 8 port would provide both 24v and 48v PoE options - and it would be plug and play.

If you are looking for a 1 to 1 relationship between cameras and WAP's (and are willing to do a bit more work), you could combine:

• 24V DC Power Supply.
• This guy (24VDC in - 48VPoE out - to camera)
• And this (passive poe injector - 24VDC to WAP)

Just a reminder - whenever you are doing passive PoE - test cabling/terminations using a certifier (or anything that will verify wiremap / continuity is correct).

Thanks all of you.

John: I'm interested in all solutions available. Also Consumer / SOHO devices.

When it comes to Ubiquiti, what I would like is a setup like this:

Lets say I got a gate 500 meters from a building. At the gate I got power in a small house 15 meters from the gate, but no network. The camera is going to be placed in a 10 meter high pole. If it was possible to do this like in the picture above I would set up the PoE injector inside the small house, and use one cable up to the Nanostation LAN1.

And here comes the part I wish was possible, but its not with the Nanostation at least.
So if I could get LAN2 on the Nanostation to pass on 48V PoE to the camera I would have a sweet and easy installation.

All connections are made inside the waterproof equipment and I don't need use any waterproof enclosures to put converters or stuff like that.

I don't know how to make this happen with the Ubiquiti's PoE adapter/extender that converts 48vPoE to 24vPoE? What I usually do is to put the Ubiquiti PoE injector inside, and use one cable out to the Nanostation, and from the LAN port on the Ubiquiti PoE injector i run a patch cable to a normal 48V PoE injector and go from there with another cable out to the camera.

All things considered, it is *that* hard to run two cables up the pole?

You're going to have a very very hard time finding a PoE-compliant device that can take power and then pass power through to another device. Basically, the first device would need to somehow power the 2nd device BEFORE it reported back to the PoE switch what it's total power budget requirement was. It gets messy to do this within spec.

It *might* be easier to run a beefy 12VDC feed up the pole, and power both the UBNT device off of that with your own adapted passive injector (it works, I've done it) and then use a 12VDC to PoE adapter for the camera, like this: DC to DC Power over Ethernet | Injector Adapter | 48VDC PoE Out

Fredrik,

To do it like the picture you posted you need to go with external power to the camera, not PoE. I can agree it would be nice if it were possible, it just isn't.

You have two alternatives, the best approach is probably dependent upon whether or not your camera absolutely requires PoE power (newer low end cameras are often PoE only - but there are plenty that also accept 12VDC/24VAC).

• PoE only camera: Something like what Brian or I recommended (basically identical recommendations).
• Camera accepts 12/24v wire in power: Do that - you can still pass through the data on the Nanostation.

I think you're better off running two Ethernet wires up the pole, one for the bridge with the adapter and one for the camera and connect both devices to a standard PoE switch, preferably a smart switch. It may be more money but you at least have remote managability and power cycling of the devices if you need to.

To Luis's point. The Toughswitch I mentioned earlier can be configured to power cycle the camera if it fails to respond to ping or on a given schedule (you need the 8 port version for 48V). That said - passive injectors will be cheaper, especially if you want to add battery backup (adding batteries to your 24VDC power supply is much less than a full 120VAC UPS)

I have used the Toughswitch in some projects earlier, and its great. But in some cases the client doesn't want to pay extra for reliability :( So I also like to look at the most cost effective ways to do things.

So after the feedback I have got, I understand that is impossible (or at least no available solution) to use Active PoE to power two devices where the first device pass on power to the next, but if the wireless bridge was to use passive PoE it should be possible, right?

Some times I use a PTZ camera on 24VAC in setups like we are discussing here. Any way to get 24VAC to 24VDC PoE?

Thanks, but I think you misunderstood my question.
I want to power the camera (Yes its an IP camera) with 24VAC and then I wonder if its also possible to use the 24VAC I then got in the pole, and convert it to 24VDC PoE to power a Nanostaion.

So I would like a device that can handle two wire 24VAC in and give 24VDC out in RJ45.

Can the camera be powered with 12VDC? It would make it simpler. If so, I'd run one wire to the camera, and another to one of these injectors, which will output 24VDC for the NanoStation.

"which will output 24VDC for the NanoStation."

The nanostations will run off of 12V. They recommend 24V to account for voltage drop. But if you have a solid 12V supply it will work just fine. Though depending on the price of that unit it might be worthwhile just for wiring simplicity.