POE splitter- Recommend some debug tools/methods for me

[wpiman]

I have a cat 5e wire that runs to a generator about 50 feet from my house. It was a spare from when they installed the generator. I put a keystone on it and pulled it into my POE switch and got a Dahua camera operating on it just fine.

Previously, I had a POE powered ethernet switch out there as well. That got lost in a lightning storm. I wanted to put a raspberry pi out there for a weather station and maybe some backup.

I opted to buy these simple POE splitters for this go around.

2.99US $ |Poe Camera Simplified Wiring Connector, Splitter, 2-in-1 Network Cabling Connector, Three-way Rj45 Head Security Camera Install - Transmission & Cables - AliExpress

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Basically, I plug one end into two POE ports, and 4 of the wires get sent over the larger cat 5 and split back out the other. The other 4 wires come from the other POE port. I tested it locally and it worked great. You just get 100 mbp which is fine for my needs.

Upon installation, I noticed only one side of the splitter was working.

The funny this is is that the POE power is working great, but the link is not occurring on the broke port. I can move the camera/Raspberry pi to the other side and everything works great. But then the other item doesn't get link.

I bought a cheap ethernet tester, and all 8 wires appear to be working. It looks like a simple DC tester, so signal integrity isn't tested.

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I tested the connectivity of each of the splitter/combiner inputs as well. It looks like 1-2-3-6 get passed through just fine, and 1-2-3-6 from the other port get mapped to 4-5-7-8 and back.

I redid the brown and blue wires on the keystones just to make sure it looked good. I suspect my blue/brown pair is somehow compromised...

Can anyone recommend anything else? I might buy some new keystones (I might be using cat 6 ones on a cat 5e wire)..

Is there a more elaborate tester than can help me here. I can probably ask at work if I know what to ask for.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[wittaj]

I have seen some of those splitters in the very fine print will say only one side works at a time...for that price I bet that is what it is...

This one works great - I have several as do my neighbors. Sold by @EMPIRETECANDY, a member here: Amazon.com : Loryta PoE Extender Mini Passive 2 Port POE Switch, IEEE 802.3af/at POE Extender, POE Repeater, Ethernet Splitter, Powering 2 POE Devices (IP Camera) Over One Cat5/6 Cable : Camera & Photo

 

[tigerwillow1]

Intuitively, I think POE splitter isn't the right name for these devices. I realize saying that doesn't offer any help. I use several similar devices and have no problem whatsoever with them. I'm assuming you're plugging into a POE switch. These devices don't work correctly when POE injectors are used, and can even fry one of the cameras. If I were in your shoes I'd try to gather more details by swapping ports and cameras. If you have the connectors and tools, you can build your own devices to temporarily swap in for problem isolation. A couple of mine are home built with RJ45 males and keystone females.

 

[wpiman]

Thanks. I have seen them listed as POE splitter/combiners. They look more to me like POE aggregators.

The parts simply take pins 1,2,3 and 6 on two POE RJ-45s and bond them on the 8 individual wires- then demux them. Nothing complicated. I buzzed them out and it seems that what is happening.

Only on side works- even-- the green which sticks to the original 1,2,3 and 6 wires. I have a gigabit POE switch coming today... I'll give that a shot. I think I had one before but it only did 10/100 (pins 1,2,3,6).

I think I have basic connectivity on all the wires but one of them might not be delivering signal clean enough. I think I need a tested which checked the signal integrity of each wire or pair somehow...