I’m mostly new to PoE injection; I’ve read several articles, but haven’t really seen this outlined anywhere. I have a Netgear WAX630 AP that’s currently PoE Injected via a suitable (meaning it’s a single-port 30w injector) with an input directly from my main switch (Non-POE). This has been working well.

Now, I want to add a few PoE cameras to my setup and place a PoE switch in my attic so I can hard-wire the cams through the attic. My question is: Can I move the PoE injector for the WAX630 behind the PoE (lower power) switch I want to add to my network? Currently, pseudo diagram would be: [switch] -> [PoE Injector] -> [WAX630], but what I’m looking to do (to minimize cable runs in the attic) would be something like this: [switch] -> [low-power PoE switch] -> [higher-power PoE Injector] -> [wax630]. My question is, is it safe to have a PoE injector on a run that’s already injected by the switch, but at a much lower power? My PoE switch for the cam’s is NOT managed, so I can’t disable PoE injection on a given port. TLDR Version: I have a single Cat-6 cable run from my closet into the attic. I’d prefer to piggy-back off of that instead of running a new line (and drilling more holes in the ceiling which my wife hates).

OR… would be best to leave the existing alone and bite the bullet (and risk wifey’s disapproval) and run a 2nd line into the attic just for the new PoE switch and cams? I’m already using VLans for IoT stuff and the cams would be added to that VLan as well.

  • ElevenNotes@alien.topB
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    10 months ago

    No. A PoE injector will simply ignore any PoE coming in on the data port. Why not use a PoE powered switch like the Unifi Flex? I used several of these to power multiple cameras where I only ran one PoE cable to.

    • MadOtis@alien.topOPB
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      Good to know! Thank you!

      For me, I’ll only ever have 2 cameras, so I really don’t have a NEED for a full unifi flex unit. The only PoE I have at the moment is the WAX630 AP and soon 2 cams for the front and back doors. If I had multiple access points, I’d opt for a more featured implementation. I’m just looking to add some Frigate support to my existing HA setup, so no need to run wild. ;)