topic Re: Ruckus POE compatibility in Unleashed

Ruckus POE compatibility

CRSR — Sun, 21 Aug 2022 04:16:47 GMT

Does anyone know of a switch that is fully compatible with whatever proprietary POE negotiation Ruckus has implemented in their x50 model lines (R850, R750, R650)?

I've tried so many Cisco, HP/Aruba, Dell switches but nothing seems to be compatible with Ruckus AP's. The last switch tried, Dell N3208PX-ON, fully supports 802.3bt (90 watts power) but when using an R850, I cannot get it to go over 12 watts when in use and our users are experiencing MASSIVE performance problems. They also just never negotiate properly in 'auto' mode and in Unleashed I always get the power warning. Manually forcing it to bt mode removed the warning, but the power never goes up past 11 watts. I've seen a lot of posts from people having similar performance problems and sadly the only fix was an AC adapter which is ridiculous for such a pricey top-line enterprise product. The only good news is 3/4 of my Ruckus R850 AP's are still back-ordered and if I can't find a fix for this POE problem, I'll just go with another vendor and cancel the order. It's mind blowing how bad Ruckus has become since Commscope's purchase.

Re: Ruckus POE compatibility

CRSR — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 04:14:04 GMT

Incompatible devices I tried: Aruba 6200F - couldn't detect 802.11AT mode. Cudy 90 Watts Gigabit PoE++ Injector - Can't negotiate 802.11BT mode. Dell N3208PX-ON - couldn't detect any mode I tried (802.11AT/BT). In all these devices, it always falls back onto 802.11AF.

Re: Ruckus POE compatibility

Squozen — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 07:39:35 GMT

I'm using an R650 which negotiated 802.at perfectly with my cheap TP-Link switch at home. It's industry-standard negotiation as far as I can tell. Are you testing with a short, known-good cable directly to the switch or using your existing building wiring?

Re: Ruckus POE compatibility

mark_pledl — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 17:37:50 GMT

Maybe completly outdated. The R850 does not support 802.11bt only PoEH or UPoE. That is like you have dicovered a big issue with Aruba Switches. Only switches are working with it are are Commscope/Ruckus ICX7150-48ZP, ICX7550-24ZP or 48ZP or cisco ones with UPoE. Maybe therer are othere Vendory but I know that they are at least working on them.

I would agree in the point that there should be some notice about this. All others RX50 models are POE + compatible, as R760 are POE++ aka 802.11bt compatible

Br,

Mark

Re: Ruckus POE compatibility

Squozen — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 18:12:42 GMT

According to the datasheet the R850 is also 802.3at compatible with some limitations.

https://www.commscope.com/globalassets/digizuite/458063-ds-ruckus-r850.pdf

Re: Ruckus POE compatibility

mark_pledl — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 19:27:22 GMT

Dear Squozen,

yes of course you can use it. But if I need to disable second lan port, usb and iot, you lose most of extras on that AP. If you need one of these extras you need PoH or uPoE compatible switches or you lose a lot capacity in 5GHz antenna Array. In case of the Op with Aruba POE++ or 802.11bt switches there is no possibility to fix it without external Power Supply or POE injector. You habe then a R850 running like a R750.

The document you liked does include that warning and information. But it was not there from the beginning. So I understand OPs frustration in some points.

Br,

Mark.

Re: Ruckus POE compatibility

CRSR — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 21:46:21 GMT

Just to update everyone since I posted this, the R850 is 802.3bt class5 compatible but requires manually changing things on the AP itself through the CLI to get it to negotiate properly. I posted the fix somewhere awhile back on the forums, it was something to do with changing the requested power to a higher amount in the LLDP settings than what is default. Alternatively you can take the easy route and just manually override the power settings per AP in Unleashed.

I've also tried the official Ruckus power injectors and sadly even those are not compatible with the R850's (again - they work fine if you manually override the power in the AP settings under Unleashed) but they will not auto-negotiate the power correctly.

I was hoping the power was the cause of the performance issues with the R850's, but it did not fix the issue. I've had a ticket open with support for about 6 months now that has gone absolutely nowhere regarding the performance of ALL Ruckus AP models. It's impossible to reach speeds over 1Gbs on these AP's (despite supporting 5Gb uplink ports). I would never recommend the R850's at this point, the R750s I've had no issues with regarding power -- they negotiate 802.3at without any issues on both the Dell and Aruba switches.

As far as the R850 spec sheet, that thing is entirely wrong. It does not support PoH or uPoE, only 802.11af/at/BT class 5. The power requirements from what I've seen coming out of the switches is nowhere near what those specs say either (even when negotiated properly using 802.3bt class 5) -- it idles at 11 watts, and only peaks for seconds up to 20 watts max. I've never seen it consume over 20 watts.

Re: Ruckus POE compatibility

Squozen — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 22:35:42 GMT

What client are you testing with? Very few devices have enough spatial streams to exceed a gigabit.

My R750 uses 7.5-8.5W and can saturate my gigabit WAN link.

Re: Ruckus POE compatibility

CRSR — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 22:54:35 GMT

Are you using Unleashed or just stand-alone firmware?

Re: Ruckus POE compatibility

Squozen — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 23:17:14 GMT

Unleashed. I have an R650 as well but I have it shut down until I can mount everything in the new house and cable properly.

Re: Ruckus POE compatibility

CRSR — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 23:24:43 GMT

Are you using 160 channelization? Can you post a screenshot of that performance by any chance?

Re: Ruckus POE compatibility

Squozen — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 07:12:32 GMT

No, none of my clients support 160mhz.