On Wed, 2010-03-24 at 10:36 +1300, Don Stokes wrote:

On 24/03/10 09:15, Lloyd Parkes wrote:
> I've only used Soekris a little bit and haven't had a problem, but the
> wall wart that I was loaned with it looked like the ones that can be
> bought from Jaycar. These are dirt cheap wall warts and I have to admit
> that I've blown up one from Jaycar. Getting an over specified power
> supply probably isn't a bad idea.

I'd echo that.  We've got a number of Soekris and Alix boxes in the
field, and mostly they're been bulletproof, surviving power supply
events that killed other equipment.

Since we use a lot of PoE, we always have a stock of unused 12Vdc power
supplies.  We always use >= 1A PSUs for Soekris & Alix boxes in the
field, but I have had Alix boards running happily on 0.5A PSUs.  Soekris
boxes (even the gutless 4501) are quite a bit thirstier than Alix
boards, and I don't know why -- I'd put at least 1.5A @12V on a 4801 or
5501, possibly more with the latter.

Soekris sell 1.5A PSUs at US$15 one-off (US$13 qty 5+), excluding the
mains lead which you'd have to source locally; Jaycar, for example sell
a small regulated switchmode plugpack of similar spec for NZ$26.50
(retail) or $20.90 qty 6+ (and Jaycar prices include GST).

Citylink has something like 200-300 soekris boxes in service (mixture of 4501 and 4801).

We've had lots of issues with power supplies. We were using a Dick Smith wall wart (12VDC, 1A, transformer) and they have a tendency to deteriorate with age. They were particularly problematic at sites where the quality of building power is poor (regular power cuts for example). This resulted in a very high failure rate after a couple years in the field, usually triggered by a power cut on site.

We are now using a smaller switchmode power supply (12VDC, 1.5A) from Jaycar. So far they are proving more reliable but I don't know if we've had them in the field long enough to say they are any more reliable in the long term.

By contrast, we've got something like 300 Cisco switches, and I don't recall ever having a power supply fail.

Dylan