Helium mobile outdoor install question.

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POE wiring install question:

I have an existing helium outdoor antenna on a flat roof. Works fine. I have the chance to add two more antennas on opposite corners to make like a triangle for coverage. Problem is the wiring.

There is no more room to run two more ethernet cables from the maintenance area where my connections are. There is no electric available on that flat roof. It is two stories tall. Only the existing single ethernet that is there and currently using is all the landlord will allow

I’m considering a Ubiquiti device to spread out power over ethernet to run all three. ui.com sells a switch flex unit (USW-Flex) that I can put on the roof. In the maintenance area I can inject POE++ into my existing Ethernet (U-PoE++) run and let it divide out to the three devices on the roof. Would that be enough power to run them?

Hope that makes sense. I’ll take your advice.

Helium Wifi

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55•posted •active

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Hi @Appydepin

This setup as you described will work perfect. I have a set of outdoor units using the exact same hardware.

Each one of the outdoor hotspots will use about 8W of power. As long as you use a POE++ injector, you can comfortably have 3 installed on one switch. Since the Flex switch has an availability of 46W you wont run out even if they use their max allocation.

Different install reference but still an outdoor unit at idle

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Thanks JD,

I’m a Unifi guy and that’s a great idea. I’m using a scaled down system on this building unfortunately, and hate to spend that much on an upgrade. My existing PoE injector is generic but works for the existing single device.

The distance is pretty far too, I had to minimize my wire length to help keep my latency down to get 100% POC rewards.

I may try this out.

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@Appydepin are you keeping up to date with helium? There are even cases now that poc is zero for everyone. If hnt price gets too low or not enough to cover the .50$/gb nobody gets POC. I wouldn’t really chase poc rewards atm. The winners are people who get carrier offloading in busy areas.

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Are you connected to a ubiquiti switch or router? It would tell you the poe draw on the outdoor hm ap. It’s probably around 15W under load. The poe++ injector from ubiquiti is 60W so 3 × 15W (assuming the draw) is ~45W it should in theory work. But the USW-Flex says it can output 45W power when powered by a 60W injector so it might be just on the limit of what it can push assuming all wifi aps are fully loaded 24/7 which they wouldn’t be.