Inside the ZEUS Powerline Bridge

This powerline bridge was the first one to become available in Switzerland. Here's how it looks:

The case is cheap, it gets very hot and smells. The manufacturer, ZEUS, does not seem to exist on the web at all; I believe it's a brand invented by the Swiss ZyXEL importer. Some people even say that ZEUS is actually ZyXEL.

It looks like the line coupler is integrated into the wall-mount transformer that comes with it. I did not bother taking that one apart because it's one of those sealed no-screws cheap shit thingies that break if you try to open them up. There's an MDI/MDI-X switch on the rear of the bridge – finally something smart!

The bridge uses the Intellon powerline chipset: INT5130 integrated powerline MAC-PHY transceiver (the big heatsinked chip), plus INT1000 analog conversion IC (small chip to the left of the PHY). An ATAN AT8982 bridge controller is used as well as a Realtek RTL8201 Ethernet PHY. The UT6164 chip is an 8 KB high speed SRAM.


© 2002 by Manuel Kasper <mk@neon1.net>. All rights reserved.