08/09/2004 21:57:49, Wookey <
wookey@aleph1.co.uk> wrote:
>Having just been to a talk extolling the virtues of POE I did think
'that
>would be nice on balloon' - the only truly international standard
power
>source.
Err, scrounging power from a USB port is also quite universal,
certainly during development. It's one of the best things about
USB, especially on desktop PCs - vast amounts of 5(ish) volts
sloshing about.
>But I wonder how it would fit in with the already numerous power
>options. And it would probably be 2 chips - the ethernet one
and the POE
>one.
It's not that much extra area, and it's possible that the PoE chip
could be used as the general purpose high-voltage supply input,
too. (The PoE spec allows some pretty wide tolerances on the
voltage seen at the port). Bear in mind that Ethernet also requires
a huge RJ45 socket (which may contain the magnetics & LEDs, but
it's still a lot of area. There's also the question of where to put the
connector - a perennial problem on Balloon - which side is a user
likely to want pointing out of their case, if any?
>I do miss ethernet...but USB provides most of the same
functionality.
CF-card ethernet works very nicely, both wired and wireless, so
it's easy enough to get your fix. It's notable that neither of the
commercial customers that I know of want / fit Ethernet except
during development.
Steve
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