Hello everyone, I am working on a new hobbyist design that I am calling now calling PPOC5. I am a hobbyist / enthusiast and want to share my progress with everyone. I am not aware of all central web forums where I can blog this and the HolidayCoro folks deleted my facebook blog on their group. As I stated there, I am not trying to sell these just work on and share a design with some community feedback. The intention is to have a central controller and not have to have power injection supplies next to every object and have it all handled by a single cable for each object. I am not sure if the ethernet connector will be in the final version as a 4 wire terminal block might be a better approach. But here is the design and please provide ideas and feedback.
Prototype PCBs were ordered 2/5/20 for testing.
UPDATE 3/1/20
Well here is the 12V version assembled. It was not fun to solder those 0603 parts, but it worked first try and I am beginning testing. I took it up to 48W and will begin testing there. Monday I will take it to work and bump it to 72W and finally 144W. The current capacity of the cat 5 will be the limitation but I am using 6 of the 8 strands for power. Initial estimates in cold weather usage is 120W over the cat 5. Minimum operating voltage is 26V under that the module powers down. Recommended voltage is 48 so plenty of headroom for voltage drop. I will have to do some long range testing when the weather breaks to find optimal usage distances.
The testing at 72W is going great. I am doing some thermals on the board but so far so good. I will post the results when I am finished. I need to purchase a spool and do some range testing at this power level.
The 5V version seems to be a hot request so I will continue to work on the PCB for the 5V version.
Prototype PCBs were ordered 2/5/20 for testing.
UPDATE 3/1/20
Well here is the 12V version assembled. It was not fun to solder those 0603 parts, but it worked first try and I am beginning testing. I took it up to 48W and will begin testing there. Monday I will take it to work and bump it to 72W and finally 144W. The current capacity of the cat 5 will be the limitation but I am using 6 of the 8 strands for power. Initial estimates in cold weather usage is 120W over the cat 5. Minimum operating voltage is 26V under that the module powers down. Recommended voltage is 48 so plenty of headroom for voltage drop. I will have to do some long range testing when the weather breaks to find optimal usage distances.
The testing at 72W is going great. I am doing some thermals on the board but so far so good. I will post the results when I am finished. I need to purchase a spool and do some range testing at this power level.
The 5V version seems to be a hot request so I will continue to work on the PCB for the 5V version.