Updating firmware of a PoE/USB based device

Hello,

I have an electronic device which is powered by ethernet. There is no power switch on this device so only way to control is to pull the Ethernet cable. It is used to program electronic keys, even though I have access to the source of this device, I am treating it as a black box (or off the shelf component)

This device can only be set via connecting a USB stick to it. When you connect the USB the device automatically picks up the correct file from the root of the disk. Then when you take out the disk it changes the new settings.

There are six LED indicators and a buzzer on the device as well (which if I can remove the housing for the device I can also have some access to, some tinkering with the wiring may be required)

Now I want to create a simple system with which I could automate the process of restarting this device and putting new files on this device with use of arduino and some electronics.

What I need is a way to connect a USB device to this system (so it would be connected to a PC and then it can be ejected and switched to the system in question) as well as to control the Ethernet power connection some how.

I am not sure what sort of electronics is required for this. The information to work this out should already be out there (how USB works, voltages etc, how PoE works. I can red behind the hardware PCB and it says Power 7-24V AC/DC. Not sure what that even means).

Thanks for reading.

Hi,

Sounds like you've set yourself quite an ambitious challenge. If the device is hard-wired to expect the firmware update on the USB port, it's not going to be able to natively expect one down the ethernet from a USB device shared on a PC. So whatever you do will have to masquerade as a USB storage device plugged into that USB port I expect.

For controlling the power to the device you are going to have to make some kind of physical modification to do this - but you say you have access to the internals so that means you should be able to arrange something of a physical switch, which in time could be a MOSFET or similar electronic switch, controlled externally.

The power rating of 7-24V AC/DC sounds very much like there's the option of plugging an external power source into the device. If I recall correctly PoE is upwards of 48V so that's not the rating of the power coming from the network. That being the case, you have the alternative path of providing external power and switching that off and on to reset it (presuming you can get the device to avoid being powered over the network when you switch off your external supply).

Cheers ! Geoff