I took the plunge and bought some ICs for the purpose of making a switch. They’re super expensive though (for the kind of budget I’m working with) and I really hope I don’t have to buy any more. Total, I bought 3 KSZ8863RLL and 3x KSZ8895MQXIA plus some 10 rj45 jacks which turned out to be a little over a dollar each! Yeesh! I spent a bit over $55 on so little… It’ll be interesting to really dig into the datasheets on these chips once they come in and I find the time. Based on my cursory glance it looked like it’ll be really easy to set these up and get them running as switches. Pretty much input in, output out and power. I mean, if it’s really that easy, then I’ll have to do something to make it somewhat more complicated. I’m thinking like a backup battery so that your switch stays powered during a blackout. They’re using less than an amp and things like the external indicator lights indicating read/write/activity/whatever could probably be shut off during power failure. IDK, just something that I’ve been thinking about. Of course it’d require some work to build a power supply that’d be smart enough to charge its self and to switch supplies based on power state so who knows if I can even figure out how to do that. Well anyway, this is where I ramble, if you’ve stumbled upon this for some reason, I’m sorry. Just keeping a log of my thoughts as I go on this journey.