Daisy chain connection

[LukasM937]

Note: This is purely an enhancement Idea.

Idea: In my opinion the addition of a second RJ-45 port, along with the necessary switch on the PCB - or an Additional board - would improve the longterm usability, since it would make it possible to daisy chain the servos.

Reasoning:

• Daisy chaining and on device switching would ease up wiring in most cases.
• cleaner cable management specially for larger setups could be achieved.
• It would negate the necessity to use an external switch. Thus it would ad the possibility to run it from a usual SBC - like the RPi-4 or similar - as these often only have one RJ-45 port. Further it could improve runtime for remote controlled robots - since the number of consumers are reduced.

Possible issues:

• It would take a lot of space on the PCB, that already seamed to be crowed.
• The extra cost in research, engineering, manufacturing might not justify the benefits for simpler setups (cables and routers are cheap)

[Neumi]

Cool idea. I also played around with the thought. But as you said, space is a big problem. It could be possible with double-sided assembly and maybe throwing out the w5500 LQFP package and replacing it with a smaller IC. As a switch IC, it could be the KSZ8863 as an option. But it's quite expensive (5-10€) and has a large LQFP-48 package as well. And I'm not sure how the daisy changing of switches would affect the latency on the last controllers... most likely not so great. But it's worth an experiment, I'd guess! It could also be just a replacement board for the current networking/display boards, as the only other functionality is the Display, reset, Estop and Endstop.

I think another great option is always a botblox switch. They're actually the exact same size as Ethersweep and have 5 ports available. (even with POE (might be cool for the future)).