Power Over Ethernet Router Conversion

Step 4 Conclusion

Plug the thing in, wall-mount/enclose outside if necessary and surft the internet with less wire mess in your life. One idea that I may try in the future is to get rid of the wal wart altogether and connect the PoE injector end into the tower's PSU. The floppy connector spits out 12 volts of power, meaning the wall wart wouldn't even have to be hidden inside a tower!

Comments

[toby12188]

If you do like you said and use your computer's PSU to power your router, be sure to tap a 5 volt source instead of a 12 volt source, routers don't work very well after you've let the magic smoke out!

[lonjim2]

Good advice!

I'd approach it from more of a "know the max voltage of the router" point-of-view though. Taking the red (+) and black (gnd) wires will give one 5 volts of power and a ground. Yellow (+) and black (gnd) wires will give you 12 volts.

It really depends on the minimum voltage the router requires to operate. For my Linksys WRT54G and WRT300N, both can run on either the 5 volt or 12 volt connections (they each have a LM7805 IC inside to regulate the voltage). On the other hand, my Belkin F7D3302 will not run on anything but the 12 volt.