BotBlox Meet Blue Robotics

When Rustom Jehangir from Blue Robotics approached us to collaborate on an Ethernet Switch for their underwater rovers, we were super excited to get involved.

The folks over at Blue Robotics are pioneers in hardware for underwater robotics, and many of our customers use their hardware for a variety of awesome applications!

The result of this collaboration was the creation of the Blue Robotics Switch; in this blog post we will detail the performance and test results of the board. The tests are broken down into the following headings.

• Main power input tests
• Auxiliary power input tests
• Port networking tests
• Temperature performance tests

Test Setup

Unless otherwise stated

• Ambient Temperature = 25°C
• Altitude = Sea Level + 9m
• Barometric Pressure = 101KPa
• Main power input = 30V
• Max cable length = 1m
• 100Mbps networking between ports 1 and 5

Main Power Input Tests

5.5V input

• Power = 247mW
• 5V rail = 5.09V
• 3.3V rail = 3.31V
• 1V rail = 1.019V
• Maximum board temperature = 31°C
• Temperature rise = 6°C
• Result = Pass ✔️

30V input

• Power = 270mW
• 5V rail = 5.09V
• 3.3V rail = 3.31V
• 1V rail = 1.019V
• Maximum board temperature = 36°C
• Temperature rise = 11°C
• Result = Pass ✔️

60Vinput

• Power = 540mW
• 5V rail = 5.09V
• 3.3V rail = 3.31V
• 1V rail = 1.019V
• Maximum board temperature = 47°C
• Temperature rise = 22°C
• Result = Pass ✔️

Reverse 60V Polarity Protection

• 5V rail: 0.005V
• 3.3V rail: 0.00V
• 1V rail: 0.00V
• Temperature rise = 0°C
• Result = Pass ✔️

Auxiliary Power Input

5V Auxiliary Input

• Idle Power: 230mW
• 3.3V rail: 3.31V
• 1V rail:1.019V
• Maximum board temperature: 32°C
• Temperature rise: 7°C
• Result = Pass ✔️

Port Networking

Port 1-2

• Data-rate (molex-molex): 94.1mbps
• Data-rate (RJ45-molex): 94.1mbps
• Result = Pass ✔️

Port 2-3

• Data-rate (molex-molex): 94.1mbps
• Result = Pass ✔️

Port 3-4

• Data-rate (molex-molex): 94.1mbps
• Result = Pass ✔️

Port 4-5

• Data-rate (RJ45-molex): 94.1mbps
• Data-rate (molex-molex): 94.1mbps
• Result = Pass ✔️

Temperature Performance

High Temperature (85°C, 3 minutes)

• Data-rate (molex-molex): 94.1mbps
• Result = Pass ✔️

Low Temperature (-33°C, 3 minutes)

• Data-rate (molex-molex): 94.1mbps
• Result = Pass ✔️

Results Summary

The results show that this board is functional within the expected voltage range of 5.5-60V on the main power input, and 5V on the auxiliary power input.

All ports show nominally 94.1Mbps networking speed (the expected data rate using 100BASE-T ethernet), in a temperature range from -25°C to +95°C.

Therefore we can proclaim this hardware design as a success!