Hi all,
I bought this neat little mini battery-backup product, the APC Back-UPS Connect 50:
APC Back-UPS Connect 50, 120V, Lithium Ion, Network Backup and Mobile Power Pack - APC - United States
It is basically a USB battery pack charger like you see for phones/tablets, enclosed in a housing that plugs into the wall, and also has 2x standard power outlets for powering low-wattage devices via the battery when the power goes out.
First, let me give you an overview of my network setup (the wireless-related portion at least):
Internet -------> Netgear cable modem -----> Supermicro Atom-based server/router (running pfSense) -------> Black Box 24-port gigabit switch ---------> Ubiquity Unify wireless AP
Now, I had hoped to be able to plug all of these devices in to the APC backup UPS, but the maximum power draw it supports is 50 watts. Using a kill-a-watt meter, I plugged in all 4 devices (modem, router, switch, AP) and measured the draw at an average of between 47 and 50 watts, with the draw sometimes going slightly above 50. The APC Backup-50 manual says that the UPS will automatically switch off if the draw goes over 50 watts, so I don't think plugging all those devices in will be a reliable solution in a power outage situation.
I still have my old TP-Link wireless router (the usual consumer-grade router/switch/AP combo), which draws < 5 watts. The cable modem draws less than 10 watts, so both devices could comfortably operate via the UPS for a while, allowing my laptop to access the internet during a power outage. However, I am having trouble figuring out how to set things up so that the TP-Link AP takes over in an outage.
I know I could place the TP-Link router in front of my pfSense router, but I want to avoid having a double-NAT setup.
Secondly, is there a way to have the TP-Link router/AP have the same SSID as the Unify AP, but not be the "preferred" access point? The reason I bought the Unify AP is partly because the TP-Link wireless network will periodically go down, on average about once a month, for no discernible reason. I installed OpenWRT, but the problem persists; I can SSH into the router via a wired connection and the router is up, but the only solution is to reset the wireless interface. So, ideally the TP-Link AP would be a backup access point... is this possible?
Thanks.
I bought this neat little mini battery-backup product, the APC Back-UPS Connect 50:
APC Back-UPS Connect 50, 120V, Lithium Ion, Network Backup and Mobile Power Pack - APC - United States
It is basically a USB battery pack charger like you see for phones/tablets, enclosed in a housing that plugs into the wall, and also has 2x standard power outlets for powering low-wattage devices via the battery when the power goes out.
First, let me give you an overview of my network setup (the wireless-related portion at least):
Internet -------> Netgear cable modem -----> Supermicro Atom-based server/router (running pfSense) -------> Black Box 24-port gigabit switch ---------> Ubiquity Unify wireless AP
Now, I had hoped to be able to plug all of these devices in to the APC backup UPS, but the maximum power draw it supports is 50 watts. Using a kill-a-watt meter, I plugged in all 4 devices (modem, router, switch, AP) and measured the draw at an average of between 47 and 50 watts, with the draw sometimes going slightly above 50. The APC Backup-50 manual says that the UPS will automatically switch off if the draw goes over 50 watts, so I don't think plugging all those devices in will be a reliable solution in a power outage situation.
I still have my old TP-Link wireless router (the usual consumer-grade router/switch/AP combo), which draws < 5 watts. The cable modem draws less than 10 watts, so both devices could comfortably operate via the UPS for a while, allowing my laptop to access the internet during a power outage. However, I am having trouble figuring out how to set things up so that the TP-Link AP takes over in an outage.
I know I could place the TP-Link router in front of my pfSense router, but I want to avoid having a double-NAT setup.
Secondly, is there a way to have the TP-Link router/AP have the same SSID as the Unify AP, but not be the "preferred" access point? The reason I bought the Unify AP is partly because the TP-Link wireless network will periodically go down, on average about once a month, for no discernible reason. I installed OpenWRT, but the problem persists; I can SSH into the router via a wired connection and the router is up, but the only solution is to reset the wireless interface. So, ideally the TP-Link AP would be a backup access point... is this possible?
Thanks.