C8, Z-wave, a tale that took too long to solve (PoE Noise)

I use cisco catalyst POE switches with cheap splitters for hubitat, lutron and hue on c8 and c7 and have no issues.

my lutron has no issues. My C-7 to my knowledge had no issues. The C-8 though, hated it. Zigbee was completely fine. Z-wave was not.

What splitter are you using?

This one... but I am not using a Unify switch
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B087F4QCTR

The switches I use. I have a few of them throughout the house.

Cisco Catalyst WS-C3750X-48P

Ha. The one I have. Lol. Maybe I just have a bad one. Guess we’ll see. I have a dumb PoE switch around somewhere I could try that.

Might need to pick up a TinySA…

I have a few of these switches on my shelf if you want one on the cheap :slight_smile:

:joy: That is a lot of switch for anyone other than a network engineer.

Switches plural (wink). 2 in the basement, 1 on the 3rd floor. All connected via 10gb fiber. Though to be fair, it's a little overkill because I only have 5 or 6 things plugged into it... So over 40 ports free lol.

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My unifi setup is a UDM, 24 port PoE pro, then a few of the little mini's, and a USW-Flex that everything is plugged into. I just went from 1 AP for the whole house to 3 and improved things drastically.

So an interesting additional piece to this saga...

Since adopting hubitat back with the C-5, then getting a C-7, I had noticed that the C-7 (primary) downloaded updates slower than the C-5 (which wasn't the primary). This carried over to the C-8 being the primary and the C-5 remaining the cloud one.

Since moving off PoE, my C-8 updates just as fast or faster than my C-5. So the PoE noise may be actually causing lower level issues with the hub than just screwing with the Zwave radio/stack...

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Hey guys! I know this thread is a few months old now, but I finally found a PoE adapter that works with the C8! It's a Waveshare brand one, and I made sure to use a shielded cable that was then grounded at the patch panel and again grounded at the switch. I tested this with a multi-meter to be sure that it was grounded. The Waveshare PoE splitter has a separate connector coming from a separate section of the board that the Ethernet wires come off of from where the power components are. It also uses a little better quality capacitors than the UCTronics one. Not only that, but the whole thing has an extruded aluminum casing. I could ramble for hours, but anyway, here's the link to the PoE splitter that worked for me...

Side note, I also opened it up and put some aluminum tape around the Ethernet wires. I'm not sure if that really did anything, but it works!

And @rlithgow1 , I also use a pair of Cisco 3750X switches. :slight_smile:

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FYI...

Ah, okay, I didn't know that thread existed. Uhg... So other people have already tested that then. Lol!

All contributions are welcome, of course! :slight_smile: Just wanted to make sure you saw it since you were another "interested party" as they say. :wink:

Do you know which version of the Waveshare you have?

Well thank you for linking me to that thread @danabw. It's just a shame that I took the time to do my own research and find that, and other people already had come to the same conclusion. :sweat_smile:

As far as the version I have, I'm pretty sure it's the newer one. This is what it looks like...

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That looks like a completely different design. If nothing else, there's only two caps in those pics whereas the original had three.

FWIW the chip in question would be on the other side of the board. The side that has the Waveshare logo.

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Okay, @dennypage , I just cracked it open again and took a couple pictures of the reverse side...

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That's definitely the Silan chip. Looks like a completely different design than the original.

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Just ordered one that @dennypage said worked in other thread... will definitely be giving it a try. I had purchased a GAT-USBCv2 hoping that would work, but hadn't gotten around to testing it. Sounds like it won't. =( Luckily I can use it for something else...

I gotta admit, While i'm not necessarily having any issues with this , Im tempted to buy one of these for my devices hub. I figuere it cant necessarily hurt, and I coudl always use and extra POE splitter .