What is the power consumption on UbiSwitch?

BotBlox Hardware
1

– Copied from customer query –

If we use all 8 ports on UbiSwitch will the watts be 4.7 or more?

2

When using all 8 Gigabit ports, the power consumption is approximately 4.5 Watts at ambient temperature (25°C). Please note that the power draw increases with temperature, and at around 100°C, it can reach approximately 5 Watts.

3

Will the SFP ports function seamlessly as 9th, 10th, and 11th ethernet ports if we connect them with metal conductors, or will there be measurable differences to the point where we should specify which ports are which?

4

I’m sorry I don’t understand your question? Are you talking about shielding? Or are you asking if the SFP ports are the same as the 1GBASE-T ports on the board.

5

Yes. I’m asking if the SFP ports are the same as the 1GBASE-T ports on the board.

6

The SFP ports are not the same as the 1GBASE-T ports on the board.

SFP is a standard that defines a modular, pluggable interface. Essentially, the SFP ports on the baseboard are designed to accept SFP modules. I would recommend looking into what an SFP module is to understand this better.

If you wanted to achieve 1GBASE-T ports on the three SFP ports, then you would purchase 3 10GBASE-T SFPs (like this). This would then give you 3 x 1GBASE-T ports. Functionally these would operate the same as the 1GBASE-T ports on UbiSwitch, but as you can probably tell, these SFP ports work differently to the 1GBASE-T ports on the board, because they use this modular interface. You could also use a 10GBASE-T SFP (like this) to get 3 10GBASE-T ports. The SFP ports on UbiSwitch support both 1G and 10G (though you have to toggle the mode using the internal command line interface). You can also find optical SFPs. Having these SFP ports on UbiSwitch gives you options, and that’s a great thing in networking.

So, the SFP ports are a little different, and certainly are not quite as rugged as the 1GBASE-T ports. Many SFPs don’t support wide operating temperatures, are not radiation tolerant, they are bulky, and the 10G SFPs use a LOT of power (a single 10G SFP can burn 2.5-4 Watts of power). This is why we are building our own 10G SFP, with a vibration tolerant connector, more compact, and that dissipates a much lower power of 1.1 Watts (lowest on the market).

Anyway, I’d definitely recommend looking up how SFPs work as that will help you a great deal.