installing secondary net switch

Hello All, I have a newish studio theatre (5 years old) with a fully networked ETC NET2 system installed. In our lighting rack there is a 24 port POE switch that controls everything. The problem is, is that we have one more wall node than there is space in the existing switch. Couple questions. 1. Can I buy another POE switch to daisy chain onto the original one? 2. Does the switch need to be managed or unmanaged? 3. Is there information anywhere so I could configure the new switch. I know that ETC sells POE switches but I only really need like a 5 or 8 port guy. Thanks in advance for any suggestions! Pat

I found this switch. http://www.netgear.com/business/products/switches/prosafe-plus-switches/GS108PE.aspx Could I possibly take 1 line from the existing switch into the unpowered side then run everything out of the powered side? Of course this is all dependent on my questions above :-) Pat

Hi Pat-

The switch that you referenced should work.  Since you have a single 24-port switch, your network configuration probably isn't too complex, so it shouldn't require a managed switch.

Pat Immel:

Could I possibly take 1 line from the existing switch into the unpowered side then run everything out of the powered side?

Yes- that should work.  You may not even need to configure the switch at all- it might work without any problems right out of the box.

-Todd

 

That switch is a bit over-the-top for a lighting network - it'll work fine but it's much faster than you need, as none of the ETCNet2 nodes or Net3 Gateways are gigabit.

The baby brother of that switch is probably a better choice - we use the Netgear FS108P or the larger FS116P (16 ports) in some small systems.

More PoE ports are much more useful than a higher maximum speed - it's a good idea to get a few spare ports for future expansion as you never know when you might want to add that little something.

The key difference between a Managed and Unmanaged switch is that a Managed switch will always need to be configured.
- So most of the time you want an Unmanaged switch to save you the bother.

The times you want a managed switch is when you're doing something 'clever' - for example, a shared Lighting, Video and Audio (redundant and/or fibre optic) "backbone" between FoH and the stage.
It doesn't sound like you've got a network like that.

When connecting it up, yes you can just connect one link between the two switches.
- The important thing is to ensure there are no "loops" - so make certain there's never more than one way for data to go between the switches. (With only two switches this is dead easy to check!)