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Electronic schema for LAN Switch

B

b4u

Golden Member
Hi,

I want to start a small personal project for my house, and at a point i'll need to create a LAN switch with specific size and form.

So before going around searching for something that probably doesn't exist (it's really a specific size and form), I want to create one for my needs.

For that, I need the electronic part of the circuitry for the LAN switch.

Since I'm a software developer and not an expert in electronics, can anyone help me finding a proper schema for a LAN switch?

What I need:

- One RJ45 entry connector (that comes from another switch) it would be a cross-link, to avoid auto-cross feature. I know I'll only connect there from another switch, so it may be always-crossed.

- Two RJ45 connectors. I may connect 2 network adapters there, or even use them to connect to another 2 switches (one for each) on the crossed connector explained in the above point.


Thanks
 
I do not really understand your description and what is so crucial in your System.

Unless you are working in a business that does printed circuit and electronic design, I doubt that you can build a switch even if you have the schematic.

Even then there is components placement consideration that can affect the performance of the switch that are not necessarily conforming with your needs of jack placement,

You probably are better off buying a commercial switch take it out of its box and building your own box.

P.S. In most new switches "cross" is not an issue since they are auto sensing. In Giga switches, it is part of the standard.
 
You definitely do not want to attempt to build your own switch without experience in electronics.
It is going to require soldering of SMD which are chips that have pins that are about the thickness of a piece of paper.And there are usually 64 or more pins on that chip to solder. Then you are going to need a board made for the circuit as wire wrapping or breadboarding one will probably make the circuit very noisy and prone to errors. The circuit board will have to be double sided, which entails through hole connections. That type of board is expensive to have made. Probably cost around $65 just for the board itself.
Then add the cost of the chips and passive parts and you can easily reach $100 or more.
Add in the cost of the tools you will need if you don't already have them, plus the power supply cost.

It just isn't worth doing unless your doing it just for educational purposes.
 
Well, to be honest I believe it would be quite hard to do the soldering myself.

The idea was to create a T-shape switch: the right-side RJ45 does the crossing, the bottom-side RJ45 receives a PC connection, and the left-side RJ45 will be connected to another switch (it's right-side).

But I believe that making a small circuit "by hand" would be quite difficult.

So, I'm thinking about getting a miniswitch (smallest 10/100 I can get), get it out of the box, and then create my custom-shaped box to receive that circuit.

Anyone knows a very small switch I can get for the job?


My idea:

Let's say I have 4 divisions at home, and each division has 1 RJ11 wall outlet connector for regular phone usage.

I have an entry into my house for the phone line, then I have 1 cable that spreads inside the walls to each of those wall outlets. So if I connect a phone signal at my house, every room will have the signal, and I can connect a phone in any division. Note that if I lift the phone in two divisions, both will ear the conversation ... 🙂

For me, I prefer to have some RJ45 wall outlet connectors instead of RJ11. I can even connect a regular RJ11 into a RJ45, so for me, RJ11 is ignorable.

My idea would be to insert Cat5 cable through the walls, and replace the RJ11 wall outlets with RJ45 ones. But that would pose a problem: at this time, I have one cable passing through the wall, and through each wall outlet. For a network capable structure, I would have to insert 4 cables into the first section (for the 1st RJ45 wall outlet), then 3 cables through the second section (for the 2nd RJ45 wall outlet), and so on ... and I really doubt I can fit 4 cables into the first section.

That's why I was thinking about putting a micro-lan-switch at each wall outlet (totally inside the wall, or better still, a wall outlet with switch incorporated). That way I would have just one cable crossing the wall between each division, the cable which would be the cross-link between wall-outlets-with-switch.


Any ideas welcome.


Thanks
 
What you are describing would come with a lot of problems that really aren't hard problems to solve.
Run one cable to each outlet then back to a central location where you place the switch. It can be under the house, in the attic, even inside the wall if you like. Then at each outlet use a wall plate that has both a RJ45 and RJ11 jack, so you have ethernet and phone jacks that are totally separate.

Using one cable to connect multiple switches complicates the installation, and could hurt the performance of the network.


If your really set on doing the way you describe though, you might want to look at using a hub rather than a switch. It is possible to do a passive hub type setup like you describe. Just don't expect great performance from it.
http://www.zen22142.zen.co.uk/.../Interface/pethhub.htm
 
I don't quite follow what you're trying to do, but if your problem can be solved by buying a small off the shelf switch and then integrating it into a custom enclosure, I'll suggest another option.

There are things called "patch panels" which are specifically used to terminate and cross connect various fixed, infrastructure, and temporary cables in convenient, well organized, and well documented fashions.

I believe that just a set of patch panels with cat 6 cables and jacks / circuits rated for Gb-ethernet would very suitably solve almost any organizational problem. You can get ones with "110 block" punch down access rows, ones that are strictly RJ45 jacks, or ones with both.

Get some of those, some color coded cables, a few 18" or 3' long patch cables for short distance cross connect, some cable tags (labels), maybe a 110 block punch down tool, maybe an RJ45 crimper + plugs, and you can solve almost any cabling organization problem neatly.

 
My initial thought was to have a central location where all cables would come from. There, a switch would be installed. The problem is that I want to pass all cables inside the wall, and normal network cables are not thin enough.

Since I have a wall "hole" passing through all my house divisions for the phone line, instead of an individual hole for each division, the first section (that first goes from the switch) would have to fit 4 network cables, which I don't believe it would be possible.

Now the simplest solution would be to use thin network cables. Anyone knows if there are cat5 or cat6 cables that are thinner that the normal ones? That could allow me to fit 4 cables in the wall.

Thanks
 
If I couldn't run the wiring I would just do wireless.
You can buy a standard router and add a better antenna and cover just about any home.
 
You could buy 8-pair (16 wires arranged in 8 distinct twisted pairs) CATEGORY 6 cables and use
two of those cables to convey a total of 4 distinct 1000BASE-T gigabit ethernet links since one
1000BASE-T gigabit ethernet link needs 4 twisted pairs (8 wires) to work.
You would ASAP split out 4 pairs into a distinct CAT-6 4-pair/8-conductor cable when / where there's room to do so, and of course anywhere the different network links in the cable physically must diverge.

e.g.
http://www.hescs.com/katalogen/66_1.htm
et. al.

If you ONLY want to use a maximum of 100BASE-T, the problem is even easier since you'd only need
CAT-5 rated cable, and, moreover, a 100-BASE-T (and 10-BASE-T) link only required TWO PAIRS to
operate, hence, a standard single CAT-5 four-pair / 8-conductor cable COULD hold two distinct 10-BASE-T or 100-BASE-T LAN links.

I don't see much reason why you'd intentionally limit your wiring to not support 1000-BASE-T gigabit ethernet, so you should look for thin 4-pair UTP cables or thin 8-pair cables.

Alternatively, there are products that offer networking over AC power lines as well as draft 802.11N wireless LAN capabilities.

If you use non-standard cables / wiring you'll probably have to wire them to 110 type wall jacks yourself with the appropriate 110 type punch down tool. Follow the relevant standards about pair usages, et. al.


Originally posted by: b4u
My initial thought was to have a central location where all cables would come from. There, a switch would be installed. The problem is that I want to pass all cables inside the wall, and normal network cables are not thin enough.

Since I have a wall "hole" passing through all my house divisions for the phone line, instead of an individual hole for each division, the first section (that first goes from the switch) would have to fit 4 network cables, which I don't believe it would be possible.

Now the simplest solution would be to use thin network cables. Anyone knows if there are cat5 or cat6 cables that are thinner that the normal ones? That could allow me to fit 4 cables in the wall.

Thanks
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