MikroTik

Hi,

I've just taken delivery of a Hex S.

I was just thinking about powering it over PoE which also happens to be the WAN port.

Now I don't know if this is a silly question early in the morning or what, but under what circumstances would it be possible to both power the device using PoE and using it as a WAN port out of the box without additional configuration?

I know that through config it would be possible to move the WAN port to a different port and get things working that way - is that the only way or is there some kind of special modem that can also supply power over PoE that I'm not aware of?

I'm looking to use the Hex S in a residential setting so I won't have access to fancy router/switches, I'm looking for the Hex S to be the main router for the network.

Many thanks in advance!

It's on you on which wire you put poe injector. You can also freely select whatever role for whatever port you wish so you can have port 3 and port 4 as wan ports, port 1 to use for poe in only otherwise unused and port 2 as lan and port 5 fully unused. Or whatever else combination you can imagine.

PoE input is exactly that, the router will power up off of ether1 and it does not mean that you can't have it as your WAN port. It will happily do both with no detriment.

Hi,

Thanks for the replies.

I understand that it's possible to reconfigure port 1 (which is WAN out of the box) to a different port.

However, port 1 is the only port that accepts PoE.

What I would like to know is without reconfiguration is it possible to use PoE and WAN at the same time? What equipment exists that powers PoE and sends a WAN connection through because I haven't ever seen one before.

If it doesn't exist, then why didn't they put PoE input onto port 2 instead? That way it would be possible to power up the router via PoE and then connect WAN to your modem/bridge and away you go.

Unless I'm missing something?

Yes you can do that. It is just a matter of cabling. A standard Mikrotik POE puts power out on the female end (or socket) so you could use a jumper to put power into the router instead of a radio. And the data lines of the Ethernet connection would still act normally. So you would be passing power into the router to power it, and pass data into it from your WAN source. You can also use other manufacturers POE's and they would wire up differently. POE's only put power out in one direction on the Ethernet connections. Where it goes depends on how it is connected. It does not mess with the data lines, those are fed straight thru.

You can inject the power into wan cable or you can use another injector as extractor and connect it into power socket of the device and put the rj45 connector into whatever port you wish. You can do everything you want...

You could even live dangerously and inject PoE up your WAN cable as well as powering it from mains!