Posted on 04/16/2013 9:03:44 AM PDT by djf
Yeah, it shows polarity, just not voltage.
It lights up at 4.5 volts, but when I plug an ethernet cable in from another machine, the connect light doesn’t come on and the other computer doesn’t see the hub.
So it’s pretty much almost sure near positive that 5 volts would work.
But it’s a halfway sunny day here near Seattle, so I’ll mess with it when it rains!
Thanks for the help! I really don’t need it, my wireless router assigns all my IP addresses...
I still say you could look up the model on Google and it will tell you. Try giving us the model and maybe we can help.
I googled. Been there. Dun that. All the company names on the device or any stickers on the device. the given model name Leehub something... the FCC id, the part number on the board inside, trust me, I googled!
I’ll try five volts later. The only reason I was playing with it is I loaned a friend an old laptop and one of my better wireless PCI cards, and I was thinking about trying to get another machine on my network.
Not a biggie.
You can think of electricity as simlar to water flowing.
You hooked up a 12’ft high water tower to your laptop with a firehose, not a kitchen sink hose.
I've done this with success a few times.
At the very least, you can get a Mfr and Model # that way and Google it for the specs.
Most of the time there will be either a sticker or silk screening directly on the casing either near the power socket or on the bottom that supplies this info.
Universals can work pretty well for networking equipment...ran my previous DSL modem for the last 2+ years of its life on one after the second or third wall wart fell apart. All the info was right on the bottom on a silver sticker.
If you want just one more machine on your network, you could just make a cord with transmit and receive reversed. Just plug from one jack to the other and you are networked. Pick one machine as a gateway and set it up to get the other on the net. Another thing I used for years was an old doorstop 486 with software that made it into a router. It was fun to play with because you could configure it to be a server, print server, ect. All of it fit on one 3.5 floppy. You just boot it up and all 3 of my puters were online all day without a hitch.
OK!!
At 4.5V the unit appeared to power up... but nothing I could do would make the connect LED come on or the laptop see it.
So I rigged up a 5V, and tried that, same results EXCEPT the LEDS that came on were dimmer than they were for the 4.5V try. Still same results with the connectivity - NONE!
So I was a bit leery, but figured if I can’t make it work, I might as well junk it and not fret, so I figure I’d push it to 6V.
6V the lights flashed vigorously and it powered up like it did at 4.5V.
I commenced plugging in ethernet cables.
I have 4 or 5 flavors of ethernet. Varying lengths. Most are grey/white. A couple are yellow. two are red.
The grey/white ones didn’t do squat. The yellow ones also failed. One of the red ones failed.
But one worked.
It is labeled CAT5 UTP PATCH 4 PAIR
The connect LED on the unit came on and Windows XP assigned it an IP address!
I suspect the red cable is a crossover cable, the kind of thing we used to do to connect computers without an external modem...
So thanks to all for the help! Lots of good advice.
Can’t help myself... I just love tinkering!
I would kick it up to 9v. It could also be that the transformer doesn’t have the milliamps to do the job. mine are both 1 amp or 1000 ma. not providing adequate current causes voltage drop and heat.
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