During the replacement of the networking onboard nb Tanya Louise with gigabit, the main 8-port distribution switch was also changed. Here’s a quick teardown of the old one.
![Netgear FS108](http://www.experimental-engineering.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_20151031_105518-300x225.jpg)
This has been quite a reliable switch for the internal networking on board, but the time has come to switch over to something a little faster. This switch will be getting repurposed for the slower devices on my network, such as the radiation monitor & the raspberry Pi systems.
![Cover Removed](http://www.experimental-engineering.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_20151031_105436-300x225.jpg)
Here’s the top removed from the switch. It’s a very simple construction, with a small power supply section & the main switch IC in the centre.
![Main Switch IC](http://www.experimental-engineering.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_20151031_105429-300x225.jpg)
All the magic happens in this main IC, a Realtek RTL8309SB Fast Ethernet switch. This is a feature-packed IC, with support for VLAN tagging, but being in a small unmanaged switch the extra features aren’t used.
![Power Supply](http://www.experimental-engineering.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_20151031_105446-300x225.jpg)
Main power supply is provided by a jelly bean MC34063 DC-DC converter, and an adjustable LM1117 linear regulator. Nothing much special here.
![Ethernet Magnetics](http://www.experimental-engineering.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_20151031_105504-300x225.jpg)
The only other parts are the magnetics for the ethernet interfaces, behind the ports themselves.