The problem with inverters

The traditional means of supplying your PoE devices with 24V or 48V is to use an inverter. The problem with inverters is that they are very complex and inefficient, causing a loss of energy through thermal radiation.

Let’s take a look at the following scenario: you’ve set up a 12V or 24V DC from your solar power system to provide 220V AC through an inverter. You then plug your PoE injector into the 220V AC power source just to bring the voltage down to 48V DC again to power your devices. First, you bring the voltage up and then you bring it down again, wasting energy along the way. 

Inefficient power conversion and power loss:

With each conversion, power gets converted inefficiently due to heat and the power consumption that each device uses. At their best inverters are only 84% efficient. This means for every 100W of power that the battery supplies only 84W of power is used for converting the current to 220V, which means that you’re wasting 16W! Then with the PoE power supply, which is normally 95% efficient, you’ll have another 5% loss in power. 

Wasteful battery consumption:

Inverters draw the maximum consumption on batteries, e.g. a 400W inverter will continuously draw 400W of power from the batteries, even though the load is only 50W. 

Ventilation issues:

In addition to all these other issues, inverters tend to heat up very quickly, which in turn can create ventilation problems in your cabinet or enclosure on a high-site. 

Now try CT-Links’ Passive PoE injectors!

What if there was a much more efficient approach to powering your PoE devices which will also guarantee that your batteries last longer in-between charges? With the 8 port, passive PoE injector from CT Links you can use it as a DC to DC converter and passive PoE. 

DC to DC conversion is more efficient:

DC to DC Converters is generally 95 to 97% efficient, which means a total power loss of only about 5%.

DC to DC converters adjusts their PWM rate according to the power used by the devices, which means that it will draw the minimum required current.

Application Examples: