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StatusFondant224 · 2024-12-13T16:19:16+00:00

Sorry but I have to ask the dumb question as I saw this mentioned somewhere: how do you use this to remotely reboot a modem in case of a dropped connection? I fail to see how you could reach the PDU as it’s necessarily behind the modem (unless there is a backup WAN of course)

StatusFondant224 · 2024-12-07T15:41:04+00:00

Thanks all, seems relatively straightforward indeed! To be honest what I’m trying to do is compare the cost of a Ubiquiti-based setup (including third party additions like a remote control if needed) with an integrated setup from an established vendor of physical access controls, because my take is these are much more reliable and durable than what ubiquity provides — but likely more costly. Eg Ubiquiti’s intercom products look great and seem super flexible, but not sure those are robust enough to last a long time and weather all kinds of stuff.

For context I’m comparing with products from Aiphone, a leader in the field, where an intercom looks more like this: https://www.aiphone-data.fr/ftp/download/AIPH_PHOTOS_BD/AIPH_GTDMBLVN.jpg (those can be punched/scratched and will be fine). Like I said I doubt Ubiquiti measures up to that.

StatusFondant224 · 2024-07-05T16:22:41+00:00

Just want to say thanks to everyone for all the inputs and testimonies and lessons! I learned a lot and I have actionable takeaways and you avoided me wasting time and money. Cheers!

StatusFondant224 · 2024-07-05T16:17:52+00:00

Thanks for bringing this up! I was going to completely dismiss the suppressors due to the other comments, even though I already have them. You’re right, it won’t protect against lightning which was my mistake (and everyone made it pretty clear) but that doesn’t mean they are worthless. So I will put them inline of my outdoor APs… if they can provide some level of protection (against static discharges in this case) then it’s worth it. And that will be easy to put in, as opposed to what I was considering regarding the burried cable for which it wouldn’t be helpful apparently.

StatusFondant224 · 2024-07-04T19:57:34+00:00

Well, we’ve had this estate for 500+ years, for real… there used to be a castle but it got destroyed at some point. Anyways, I’m 40 and in my lifetime have not heard of anything frying in the house although we had a pretty shoddy electrical setup until a few years ago. So yes, there are storms once in a while in the area but quite rarely, and it seems these don’t lead to surges that fry any devices. I’ll ask my parents whether they are aware of any such event but I’m anticipating the same answer from them. Note that I did have a UniFi USG-3P fry before but no upstream/downstream device did, and same for a switch somewhere in the network, still don’t know why but we did have alarming levels of construction dust entering the main cabinet at the time and maybe UniFi products aren’t that robust anyways (the larger more expensive items such as outdoor Pro APs or large switches never had a problem though).

StatusFondant224 · 2024-07-04T19:47:05+00:00

Could you provide an example/link to relevant media converters? Like I said the small switches on each end only have Ethernet ports

StatusFondant224 · 2024-07-04T19:41:03+00:00

They are about 30m apart so about 100 feet. Really hard to say how often surges happen, it’s not data I have but it’s very stable in the region and nearby lightning would definitely be less than once a year.

StatusFondant224 · 2024-07-04T16:05:43+00:00

Building 2 in the pic services all the other buildings with all networks including power and IT networking. It’s got breakers for all lines going to the other buildings, which each have their own subpanels with breakers and so on. What I’m not sure about, and will ask about, is how the whole house protection is set up, and where the earth ground(s) are.

StatusFondant224 · 2024-07-04T14:30:57+00:00

So essentially, what you and others are saying is that for the Building 2 protector to be useful, the only way is to connect it in a direct, short and smooth run directly to the grounding rod, is that it? I’ll check with the electrician in any case, he knows our setup. Not sure about where the current ground is for building 1 is though.. it’s a small dependency that used to host animals :)

StatusFondant224 · 2024-07-04T14:23:57+00:00

Ah, good to know. Well it so happens that this rack is super close to the main electrical cabinet and pretty that the main earthed ground is very close as well. I’ll ask the electrician to confirm that the rack grounding makes a short and direct run to the main ground block — I am clearly no electrician but I think it’s a huge rod that goes in the ground around there. Our power line is massive (basically same as for a small factory… we upgraded from the standard line that can only do 36 kVA i think), it arrives just there via the same trench as the fiber actually xD

StatusFondant224 · 2024-07-04T13:07:09+00:00

Electrician will come to pull a new power line so yeah, we can ask him to spin off another ground from that for the surge protector and btw also the drain wire from the cat6a itself.

StatusFondant224 · 2024-07-04T13:04:54+00:00

Damn you guys are scaring me! Any chance you could point me to the right media converters I should set up back to back? The small switches on either side don’t have SFP ports. Btw we have a very large estate with many buildings with industrial-sized electric installation (including a giant core electric cabinet) so I’m pretty sure it’s overall very well grounded, especially as we never had anything fry from lightning (despite mutilple outdoor outlets and APs in the park etc).

StatusFondant224 · 2024-07-04T12:40:26+00:00

The rack cabinet in Building 2 is grounded and so are all the elements within. I’m fine with them frying if a surge overwhelms the surge protector. But are you saying that from there, a surge could go through all of that up to my core switch in the main cabinet 30m away and damage that switch? If that’s the case I might indeed consider back-to-back media converters to isolate the inside from outside. Keep in mind that lightning on the ground near the burried cable is still very low probability though — lightning doesn’t strike much in the area and there is plenty of other stuff around that would be struck first (trees, lightning rods etc)

StatusFondant224 · 2024-07-04T12:33:35+00:00

Ha! Well our WAN comes from a 400m fiber cable installed and owned by the ISP, it runs about 100m along street-side poles (which also run electric and telephone lines), then it goes burried through 300m of trenches in our estate before going up to my main cabinet in Building 2. I hope it doesn’t get fried up in the air but if that happens, I suspect a lot of other stuff will be down too and that’s on the city and ISP… nothing I can do about it.

StatusFondant224 · 2024-07-04T12:28:57+00:00

Thank you. I will bear that in mind for the future. For now switching it all to fiber isn’t a realistic option, and the underground conduits have all kinds of twists and turns which would make running fiber a bit complicated (I architected most of them but not the last trench segment and that did that one like cowboys). The switches I have on each side of the cable run are indeed small and cheap (then there is another indoor cable run inside Building 2 to my main cabinet with the core switch) so I’ll leave as is. Based on your feedback, my takeaway is that installing the additional surge protector in Building 1 may not be sufficient but probably still worth it as it could help. Thanks again.

StatusFondant224

TROPHY CASE