12-250-DC Fried All Of My Radios

[jakematic]

When you have 50 volts on the output...

RMA info …
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1259

Keep spare switches, like I do. Is cheaper and less frustrating.

New switches will be out in September if we're lucky. Nothing but delays and ongoing broken promises, just like UBNT.

Don't plan for an RMA. I've got failed switches covered under 'lifetime' warranty due to poor manufacturing practices sitting on the shelf.

Sirch (Chris's high school hacker name) is having a nervous breakdown or something and has abandoned the company it seems after they lost their ass on cables.
Eric (another 'partner') has been gone since October, leaving Dave holding the bag.

I don't see a path forward here and there are other vendors who are reliable. Real shame.

[krakrenterprises]

I agree with your assessment. I have noticed very poor communication while browsing the forums relating to failed equipment, new product launches, etc. I seems something has faulted within the company and they are struggling.

I keep spare switches, but being new to Netonix, in general, I am a little worried that a failed switch can fry all of the equipment plugged into it. It doesn't matter to me if they will cover it, as the damaged equipment on the tower is greatly more expensive than the switch. No failed equipment should ever cause a cascade of additional problems in my opinion.

Besides putting a few Edgepoint S16's on these sites, I am not aware of another switch that supports 24/48v in with 24/48 out.

[sirhc]

So since mid October 2019 I have only been working part time.

I started a remodel of my house that went BAD. The more we went into it the more BAD stuff we found.

I started the remodel when we were waiting on fans and production ground to a halt. Then for some reason we got inundated with millions in orders but my house was completely torn apart at this time.

Yes RMAs are WAY behind. However as I have said MOST RMAs are units that are over 1 year warranty period or damaged units. If we only repaired units that were under warranty and not damaged we would get like 10 to 20 RMAs per month.

The fact that we repair units that are damaged and units that are over 1 year old we get more and more RMAs, it is crazy. This will change eventually and we will stop repairing units that are 2+ years old otherwise the number of RMAs grows exponentially.

One person said we should hire more people to do RMA but we do RMAs at a loss, on average $25 - $50 loss sometime more. When I do it it is my time but to hire more and more tech to lose money makes no sense.

So my house is finally nearing completion, I have been without a kitchen since late October and 1 functioning bathroom.

I work about 20+/- hours per week mostly international shipping and customs paper work and ordering parts.

As far as the switch damaging equipment the only way a switch can damage equipment is the switch is damaged first which I have explained on here many times how it happens.

Ground current fries a current sensor which can possibly damage a 48V MOSFET then turn 48V POE on for a device that wants 24V.

We made significant improvements about 1 year ago to better handle poor user grounding at sites (last February-ish).

Now between then and October when I stopped processing RMAs we saw a SIGNIFICANT reduction in ground current damage in RMAs from units manufactured after that time frame.

But since most of our RMAs are OLDER units far beyond warranty period, for example at least 20% of our RMAs are 3+ years old these improvements in ground current can not magically be bestowed on units already manufactured prior to that date.

Over the next few weeks I will be back more and more and will DIG OUT of a 3-4 month back log of RMAs and start being more active on the forums.

In hind sight had I known what I know now I would have burned my house to the ground rather than start that process but there was so much damage from water infiltration from the simple fact that my house needed a new roof and windows right around when I started Netonix and letting it go for 4+ years caused all this damage.

No I am not doing it all by myself, we have 2 full time general contractor companies (4 people) and several sub contractors.

We ended up having to do the following:
New roof
Remove siding and stucco and replace
Replace all windows and a lot of sheeting and insulation not to mention 80% of the drywall.
All new floors, cabinets the list goes on.
I have had to be there to not only do some of the work but make sure they do it the way I want it (right).
I am 2 months and about $100K over budget.

[krakrenterprises]

Thanks for the clarification sirhc, however while I feel for you and the renovation gone bad, you have a company to uphold.

The fact that you have been inundated with millions of $ in orders is reason itself to pass the renovation along to a contractor and focus on the business 100% of the time.

STOP repairing units over 1 year. Lifetime warranties are a recipe for disaster. If people want to buy a board and fix themselves, so be it, but do not allow these old repairs to drag the company down.

All of your customers have business' to run and are depending on your products to operate efficiently, with timely updates, improvements and new product launches.

We all deal with dozens of equipment suppliers. We are all aware of 1 year warranty policies and we know that is a product fails after 1 year, we throw it away or keep it for parts.

As for my particular situation, the most helpful and efficient way to solve this would be:

- Acknowledge the actual failure (we replaced the radios and switch and nothing else, no surge protectors were shorted, there is 4 feet of snow on the ground so this is not a storm related failure, the site is perfectly grounded, and the failed switch can still be logged in to) This switch failed, end of story. We have hundreds of other POE switch brands in the field and have never had a single failure cascade like this.
- Provide me an RMA number, which I can send back the failed unit.
- Send a new switch as soon as you receive the failed unit and confirm

Alternatively:
- Validate my warranty
- Send me a replacement board only
- I will throw out the old board once replaced
(I am sure there is enough margin in manufacturing and selling these switches to eat the cost of a board under warranty. Even at 10-20 per month as you stated, it is probably less than one full time employee to service all of these units under warranty)

These steps should take no longer than 10-14 days total. Any longer is unacceptable (even UBNT can turn around items this fast lol). If you are unable to complete this in a timely manner, just let us all know. Like I said, we have business' to run, and we will happily move on to another brand if you are unable to provide a quality service.

Your product is dynamite in functionality, and with a few new versions, could be a total winner going forward. We have purchased $25k worth in the last 4 months and plan to buy even more units. However, sinking a bunch of money into this product line to find out the owner is working part time doesn't pass the smell test for me.

We look forward to you getting your renovation completed and getting the business sorted out shortly.

[jmaxson]

This problem has me in a very bad place.........I am in charge of the transmit sites we over 100 sites and have about 70 netonix switches in place. we had a storm pass thru the area and we lost three sites ----- every device---- no one else on these towers had any damage. having been treated like a moron and being told to ground the system when we had issues very early........ so we drive an array of rods and wire grounds directly to the netonix and the radios..... now my boss is extremely upset when EVERY device is destroyed. power supplies and battery backup units are just fine.......... do we need to put surge suppressors and buck converters in front of every device?? I just don't know what to do, but i do know if this happens again every single netonix will be on ebay within a week.

[krakrenterprises]

jmaxson, just put in POE midspan and another brand of switch. We have switched to a Dot9 Midspan device (which includes surge protection), and then using a Mikrotik Switch behind it to manage Vlans, etc.

Netonix is garbage product, and garbage company to deal with. They should shut the company down and go work at Mcdonalds.