this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2024
477 points (99.6% liked)

Technology

59331 readers
4840 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
477
World's smallest, cheapest network switch developed by US high school robotics team — Murex Robotics makes the hardware fully open-source (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
19 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Designed for use in a remotely piloted underwater rover, the mrxSwitch v2.0 supplies five 100 Mbps Ethernet ports at a footprint of only 44.9mm by 42.2mm. Network switches of this form factor are typically reserved for highly embedded systems; the team prioritizes its use in remote-operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) or autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), but IoT devices and other consumer devices with space constraints may have use for network switches this small. The mrxSwitch v2.0 represents a 30% size reduction over its predecessor, along with a BOM cost reduction of 15%, even with its smart-looking custom PCB.

Most solutions for network switches of this form factor are priced at a premium due to the narrowness of the use case, with MATE-sponsored options running from $75 to $175 -- hence the decision to engineer an original solution. The mrxSwitch v2.0 stands at a current BOM price of $7. While you might not see it used in our best network switches (at least not yet), the build is a serious triumph for the young team.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] -3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

At that size, for that speed, I wonder why wifi was discarded. Depends on the components connecting, I guess, but if each component is custom I imagine adding a small wifi chip to each could be smaller overall?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

While it works Wifi isn't great for control. You need a stable connection without jitter.