Overview

From the industry leader in highly automated PoE Powered Device (PD) and Power Sourcing Equipment (PSE) 802.3 specification conformance testing comes a one-box solution for volume testing of PDs in QA, manufacturing, and field settings. The Multi-PD Evaluating PSE, MPD-600, is a compact 1U rack-mountable instrument that tests groups of up to 6 PDs simultaneously, reducing average verification time for each PD. Powerful MPD-600 software enables everything from simple “zero-click” PD evaluation to highly customized PD test automation from a variety of platforms and programming languages.

What Makes the MPD-600 Unique?

The MPD-600 is functionally an IEEE 802.3 compliant PoE Power Sourcing Equipment (PSE) switch with full capability to assess PD compliance to 802.3 powering specifications associated with any PD Class (0 to 8) while operating at both minimum and maximum voltage extremes. Stated another way, the MPD-600 is the most demanding PSE a PD will ever encounter.

Overcome Limitations of Other Test Methods

Use of PoE injectors is a convenient, low-cost way to power a PD and then manage the PD across the LAN. However, commercial PoE injectors introduce severe limitations as they don’t necessarily represent a compliant PSE and have no ability to police power draw near to or at the 802.3 standard boundaries where PDs should be tested. Further, injectors don’t support PD input voltage extremes such as low voltage where current levels are maximized. Test strategies that add long cable spools between PSE and PD may add to “peace of mind” but the truth is that there is nothing “calibrated” about a 100 meter spool of cable in line with an uncharacterized PSE.

Designed for Factory Test Automation

The MPD-600 incorporates a 10/100/1000 LAN port for instrument management and a separate LAN port for remote management of the PDs under test. Host PC software manages the MPD-600 across the LAN. A robust command application programming interface enables construction of specialized PD test application software tailored to the unique characteristics of PDs to be tested while capitalizing on the ability to test up to 6 PDs at a time.

Assessing PDs in the Field and Field Service Environment

The optional MPD Interactive Software working with the MPD-600 makes easy work of pre-certifying or evaluating PDs placed in customer/end-user settings. Evaluating arbitrarily selected PDs can be as simple as plugging them into the MPD-600 with the Plug ’n Test menu. More sophisticated interoperability testing is achieved with the Group Interop test application and the PD Diagnostic test application. PDs can be interactively managed over the network while testing runs using IP addresses recovered by MPD-600 software.

A Whole New Strategy for PD Verification

As the first and only product of its kind, the MPD-600 Evaluating PSE radically simplifies Powered Device verification/qualification in lab, manufacturing, and field settings. Replace injectors, cable spools, DC Power supplies, system PSEs, break-out boards, and DC meters with more comprehensive, more flexible, more effective, and more space efficient PD testing!