We face the same problem here in the rural Dominican Republic. Cisco gave us some used AP-340's, which use 5-volt power (at about 4 watts). We use them as remote repeaters, powered by small 12 volt solar panel systems, so a high-efficiency voltage converter is critical.
We've had excellent and trouble-free service with the National Semiconductor LM 2576 and 2596 "Simple Switcher". We just solder everything to a scrap of pc board, and add some zener and Shottky diodes on the input for reverse-polarity and spike protection. "Simple Switcher" couldn't be more true... we've just used inductors scavenged form dead power supplies. And National will even send you free samples.
This message is coming to you from the village of El Limon over a 7 km link with a hilltop repeater at the 1.5 km point. The repeater has one of the 2596 reducers, and there's another in a PoE setup in town. We've had other locations in continuous use for two years with no failures. One was even reverse-connected, blowing the power input filters on the AP-340, without hurting the reducer. We added protective diodes after that.
Jon Katz
_____________________________________________________________________ Center for Religion, Ethics, and Social Policy Anabel Taylor Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca NY 14853 USA Office: 607-255-6202 Fax: 607-255-9985 Resident Technical Consultant, Rural Alternatives Center El Limon de Ocoa, Dominican Republic Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.sas.cornell.edu/cresp/ecopartners _____________________________________________________________________
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