What is with Aruba and all their different console cables?

So It used to be that Aruba WiFi used the industry standard RJ-45 rollover RS-232 cable that Cisco pioneered. Then they experimented a little with USB to RS-232 built into some of their outdoor APs so that you would just plug a, then standard, USB to USB Mini-B cellphone cable into it and wala! you had serial connection over USB.

Then there was the TTL pins in the low end equipment where 4 pins were exposed allowing them to cut the TTL to RS232 circuit out for cost savings.... and that bled into the 305 model, which replaced the 205 and 105 before it that had RJ-45 consoles, but you know, cost savings....

We recently got some IAP 335s and look! they have RJ-45 consoles again! sweet!

The IAP-335 was replaced recently with the cheaper to manufacture IAP-345.
I open up the box and to my surprise I see this:

What the heck?

Seeing that obvious warning sign with the ! exclamation point on it I knew this would not be a straight USB connection like the outdoor APs, so I googled to see if anyone else had asked about it.

Aruba wants people to buy their new proprietary USB to USB Micro-B adapter called the AP-CBL-SERU so, I googled that part number already guessing that what it would be is a TTL to USB adapter like the old AP-CBL-SER that the low end indoor APs and the IAP-305 used (which we used a trusty Adafruit TTL serial adapter for instead of buying the Aruba one for much more $$.).

So, I grabbed a Micro USB cell phone cable (from an old Blackberry) and hacked off the computer end of it, exposing the 4 wires inside.

Plugged in my Adafruit TTL adapter and crammed the ends of the black, Green and White leads into the Adafruit's sockets for the same colours and fired up the AP.


No dice. Didn't work. Knowing that Black is ground I figured I had the 2 data pins in reverse, so I swapped them, White to Green and Green to White.

Magic!

Can never be too safe

I just bought a few of these for the aquarium tanks that are not connected to an in-wall GFCI outlet.

https://amzn.to/2KSgsSs




UPDATE: I will not be using these for my aquariums because if the power goes off due to blackout/brownout the device switches to the OFF state, so when power is restored the aquarium would still be shut down even though nothing was wrong.

Cheap internet in Ontario, Canada

So a few weeks ago I found a nice deal on a cable internet provider, and last week had it installed. I had been dissatisfied with my upload speeds on DSL, but really not all that interested in paying the premium of about $10/ month to switch from DSL25 to Cable75 at TekSavvy just to get off Bell's infrastructure and onto Rogers where I knew I could get at least the 4-5Mbit upstream I wanted reliably, so I had resigned to the idea that live streaming (broadcasting) video was just something I would not be doing at any decent quality any time soon.... then I saw they Carry Telecom deal on RedFlagDeals. Now I have Cable 75/10 for less than my TekSavy DSL 25/10 that wasn't getting 25/4 most of the time because of the old phone lines in this area. (yes, we had Bell techs out to troubleshoot, there was nothing they could do about it) Let me be clear, I LOVE Teksavvy and their support has always been outstanding for me, but money in my pocket is better than in theirs. $10 less per month for 3x the download speed and easily 2x the upload speed that I was actually getting is a big deal. and no download limit, not that I had ever gone over my Teksavvy 200GB limit (night time downloads are free at Teksavvy) To be totally honest, if I was a gamer I wouln't get Carry Tel cable. Carry Telecom's ping rates are double what Rogers has on the same infrastructure and that is almost double what Teksavvy has on DSL... I don't know what Bell DSL is like I haven't got one to test, but If you are a gamer you probably want DSL. Me, I just wanted more upload speed. Anyway, if you are looking at switching I'll drop 2 promo codes here. DSL promo: $10 off DSL modem purchase: MA44761 Cable promo: $10 one time discount: MA44762 (cabe modems, at least in Rogers territory are free rentals so no purchase) Check them out, see if they can save you some money too. https://www.carrytel.ca