[j-nsp] MX104 Limitations

[Ross Halliday]

Saku Ytti wrote:

> > 1) It’s 3.5U high, making rack planning a little weird, and requiring me to buy a hard to find half-U blank panel
> 
> It is targeting metro applications, where racks often are telco racks. job-1
> and job-2 were thrilled to get MX104 form-factor, MX80 was very problematic
> and lead to 'creative' installations.

Telco here. I love the MX104's format... in general. Most of our installations are DC so the .5U part is really negligible as approx. 1U is required off the bottom of the unit for clearance anyway. What drives me nuts about the height is actually the spacing of holes on the ears. Racking them is clumsy for this reason.

I'd love to see a switch in a similar form factor. We've had to put some EX4200s in one of our COs, and man, what a pain in the cavity those are. Flimsy little ears and way too deep. 

> > 2) It uses unusual power connectors on its power supplies, so you have to plan to buy special power cords just for this.
> 
> It's standard C15/C16 which is temperature enchanced (120c) version of
> standard C13/C14. Lot of vendors are doing that these days, I'd like to
> understand why. Is there some new recommendation for fire safety or what has
> triggered the change.

Thank you for this explanation!!! We have one AC unit at a tower site and were wondering what the story was. Our company now has *TWO* NEMA 5-15P to IEC 320 C15 cables.

About the only other thing that annoys me about the MX104 is the location of the chassis ground. Right in the corner with the fan tray. Seriously?

In general I love these little routers.

Cheers
Ross