WS-26-500-DC shutting down

[JohnWall]

We have a remote WS-26-500-DC which has shut itself off twice this week. I am using the latest firmware (earlier this week). It's on a mountain, 5 miles by quad and a 2 mile hike up hill to get to it, which now has 2 feet of heavy wet snow on it. We have 3 banks of batteries, 24 volt, 400AMP hour cells and 6 solar modules totaling 1500 watts. The first time we went up, all I did was to turn the power switch off and turn it back on. I was up there today checking all the connections, breakers, fuses and wires and all was well. When I got off the mountain, about 4 hours later, everything shut down. This site handles about 80% of our small WISP traffic.

Does anyone have any ideas? I'd really like to have a chat session with Netonix, but this is their way.

FYI, my home connection is on this link as well, so I need to come into the office for any responses. If anyone would be willing to give me a call, I'll pass along my number.

Thanks
A frustrated WISP supplier
John

[sirhc]

Is the switch connected directly to the battery bank or is it connected to your charging controller?

Many people do not listen to us and hook our SMART DC switches to either a power supply or charging controller then they have issues and blame us.

The SMART DC units monitor the input voltage and do things based on that voltage so we need that voltage to be stable and change slowly. When hooking the switch to a controller this can cause sudden short duration voltages changes and cause weird things to happen.

When you hook directly to battery bank voltages are smoother.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4450&p=27007&hilit=+battery+direct#p27007

[sirhc]

I'd really like to have a chat session with Netonix, but this is their way.

Look, we are a "small" company with limited resources.

We sell about $5 MILLION annually with about 20%-25% GPM which leaves aout $1 to $1.25 MILLION "gross" profit.

Out of that gross profit we need to pay:
Insurance
Rents
Payroll
Legal support and regulatory/certifications costs
RMA warranty repairs
R and D for new products
And so on.

Now I am not sure what UBNT does today but when I stopped being a Superuser at UBNT they were a public company valued at $4+ BILLION dollars and they did not offer phone tech support and as a Superuser I also had to either get support via their forums or email. We do not offer email support but we do offer forum tech support.

We sell in over 40 countries and have 10,000+/- users out their. Even with the forums people do not bother searching for an answer they asked the same questions over and over again.

Could you imagine what would happen if we offered phone tech support?

Hell I can't even get people to always read the single piece of paper laying on top of their new switch with the default username and password before they throw it away then email me asking how to login to the unit.

We take a pain staken amount of time on all RMA repairs (especially switches 1 year or less old) even providing pictures of damage and explain what we think happens, most often ground current and people do not read those reports and listen. They do nothing to improve their grounding then get angry when they suffer the same damage again.

Most common issues with SMART DC switches is people do not follow our instruction to hook directly to battery bank but rather power them from the controller and or power supply.

Last week we got a WS-12-250-DC switch in for warranty that they included a 800mA wall adapter with banana connectors that they were using to power the switch? - WTF

If the unit is so hard to get to I would have swapped it out with a spare - WISPs should always have spares of everything. As a WISP myself I have spares of everything. In fact I have enough spare equipment to replace 2+ complete towers in an emergency.

You could have a defective unit?

You could have it powered by your controller which is wrong ESPECIALLY for a WS-26-500-DC as the power supply is rated at 500 watts but in reality is much more so power draw spikes can be heavy.

Who knows?

I am sorry you are having issues and we will do our best to help you out.

[sirhc]

Read this post: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=4686&p=27206#p27206

[JohnWall]

I guess I hit a sensitive issue, I apologize.

So this is what I know now. The switch is connected to a simple toggle ON/OFF toggle switch, then to an inline pos. buss fuse rail. There are 12 - 6 volt batteries wired in 3 banks of 24 volts, about 400 amphour. I understand this is not the recommended and we will change it next time up.

When I got to the site, nothing was powered up, but the battery banks all looked good, (23v, 24v and 25V). They should have all been about the same. When I pulled the fuses, they all visually looked good, but I did not do a continuity test. When I put the fuses back in, nothing happened, so I took the fuses back out. It looked like the switch was at fault, so I removed it and put the fuses back in. (I have since tested the toggle switch and its OK). The power did not come up for the first 2 fuses, but did when I put the 3rd one in. Very confusing.

Anyway, the Netonix powered up, fan on and power light on, but no lights on the ports. I tried logging in and only ports 23 and 24 lit up with the traffic light, nothing on all the others. I ran an IP scanner program on both the assigned IP and 192.168.1.?? and it found nothing. I brought it down and tried again today, and still nothing.

I've gone through the bench testing recommendations and would like to try it, but can;t get in.

What is the DEF on the front of the panel for? Reset?

I don't know what to do next. I had upgraded the firmware just last week.

Thanks for your time, and again, I apologize.

[sirhc]

I guess I hit a sensitive issue, I apologize.

No need to apologize, just explaining why we do not offer phone tech support.

The switch is connected to a simple toggle ON/OFF toggle switch, then to an inline pos. buss fuse rail. There are 12 - 6 volt batteries wired in 3 banks of 24 volts, about 400 amphour. I understand this is not the recommended and we will change it next time up.

Now I am not sure I follow this?

I do not care how you connect your batteries in their bank but rather that the switch connects to the direct to the batteries (with inline fuse or breaker) without going through your charging controller.