Netgate / pfSense Store SG-series devices - Locking Power Connector?
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First I would like to thank everyone involved for the amazing teamwork and design that has led us to the SG- series of devices currently offered. Truly reliable device and incredible price/performance - unbeatable combo with pfSense + Netgate / ADI. Bravo ;)
I recently noticed the switch from blue to black cases for the SG2440's and was wondering, now that it seems small revisions are possible…
TL;DR on to the question: have you considered a locking power connector for these?
We have been "bitten" a few times by the power connector coming loose. It has a somewhat short plug, combined with a large/heavy brick and this makes it fairly easy to pop out. Netgate used to have a device called the "Hamakua" or FW-7535 I think it was called (Lanner hardware) that had a beautiful screw-on power connector. Loved that. Just gives you that extra fuzzy feeling when you're leaving a site knowing that the box will stay up.
Something like this:
Just my 0.02c !
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I'd discussed it with ADI back during the design phase, but it got dropped.
There is a … 'future revision' that may re-enable the possibility.
Thanks to whomever 'reported' this (it's not spam) and brought it to my attention.
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Alright! Here's hoping! If it was dropped due to manufacturing cost I am surprised - I don't imagine that this could add more than a couple of dollars to the build cost.
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+1 for this
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A less expensive method may be a retention clip. Some devices use a 90 degree plug that can be rotated into a little retention clip.
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Checking back in, I'm still holding out hope that a locking power connector is somehow in the future…... :D
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jwt - any news by chance on this locking connector?
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Sennheiser uses a latch on their wireless receivers to get some strain relief from the power cord. Something like that could easily be added to the rear of any case.
[In setups with an antenna-splitter the receivers are phantom powered via the antenna cable from the splitter which utilizes locking BNC connectors anyways. It's just not an option to lose power to the wireless receiver when talent is on stage.]
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jwt - any news by chance on this locking connector?
Until it will be happen you could try out to put a small or tiny drop of hot glue over a hot glue pistol
if the jack is sitting right only at the border, so it could not be pulled out by any contacts.
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Well well well…
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have you considered a locking power connector for these?
There's one thing you might consider, if the plug is right angle, rather than straight. You could use a self adhesive cable anchor and cable tie, to hold the connector in place. I've done similar on a few occasions. Even if it's a straight connector, you could still loop the wire through the cable tie.
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We resell Digi AnywhereUSB devices as part of our solution, and they have locking power connectors. I always wondered why most other players who imagine themselves in the enterprise are not doing the same.
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@KOM:
We resell Digi AnywhereUSB devices as part of our solution
Haven't seen those before but they look nice. Can you use them to talk directly to the USB console (SiliconLabs CP210x) on modern pfSense devices?
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No idea. I'm running pfSense under ESXI 6.0 and haven't tried that.
We use the Digi's to connect a realtime USB clock to a virtualized Windows server. Our solution is a data retention dealie and it's critical that the user cannot change the system time. Since most of our customers are virtualized and you can't plug a USB dongle into a VM, we use these to connect the VM server to the USB device over the network. I used to use Digi multiplexers back in the day when I worked for an early ISP (very early 90's) and we had dozens and dozens of racks of 28.8k modems, all tied into a *BSD box with Digi serial muxes. Great hardware.
