PROBLEMS with DC switches at or near FM tower locations

[sirhc]

Hey Guys

I am running into the same issues, twice in the past two days. Device is been up 4 months now with firmware 1.3.8. Where do i locate 1.3.9 for download.

Thx

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=240

[fiberpipe]

Sirhc

Thanks for the link, does updating the firmware resolve the cold boot issue!! We have a ws-12-250-ac that isc rebooting once a day now, the device is in a remote area and hard to access. Also is there a tech support phone number available..

[sirhc]

Sirhc

Thanks for the link, does updating the firmware resolve the cold boot issue!! We have a ws-12-250-ac that isc rebooting once a day now, the device is in a remote area and hard to access. Also is there a tech support phone number available..

We are working on a firmware v1.4.0rcX right now that might help this issue, hope to release it soon.

Not sure what a phone call would do to help this. We are aware of an issue and are hoping to fix it soon.

[sirhc]

Who was the guy with the WS-12-250-DC in like Panama on top of a volcano with FM Transmission towers?

Get a hold of me!

Also wifi442 get a hold of me.

We have experimental WS-12-250-DC switches (Hardware changes) for you to try.

[wisp-wand]

I'm 'the guy next to a train track, and 500m from a substation' ! will try the update just need to rework the site so I can get the Netonix switch in their at the same time as the current solution so we can test without impact to customers.

Regards

Wayne

[sirhc]

Update:

Currently we are in production with Rev F boards which "should" work at most FM tower locations.

Obviously we have no way to test every situation but we think we have it resolved.

It required a lot of on board filtering to deal with the high level of FM interference at these locations.

We also have a new smaller DC switch coming out that should also work at most FM tower locations:
https://www.netonix.com/wisp-switch/ws-8-150-dc.html

Since we are SOLD OUT of WS-12-250-DC units and Distributors are also soon out and the new Rev G batch will not hit until 2nd or 3rd week of May and all Distributors will be out of stock by then so after the 3rd week of May all available WS-12-250-DC and WS-12-DC should be the new board Rev.

As we already know our AC switches do NOT have an issue with FM interference so if you need a solution for now at or near an FM tower use one of our AC models.

This was not a design flaw but rather something we did not originally design for. We designed the DC switches for off grid WISP sites, we assumed that if you were at an FM tower site you would have AC power and a backup generator so why would someone use a DC switch.....famous last word I guess.

We spend a lot of time and money trying to resolve this issue that affects less than .1% of people using our DC switches so I hope it works.

As always though you will still have problems with Ethernet communications at FM tower sites. This fix for FM tower sites if for the communications between the switch board and the power supply and has nothing to do or help with Ethernet communication problems at FM tower sites that WISPs have battled with for years.

[kbloch]

I can confirm that your software changes have made the problems less severe with a DC switch at a site with FM radio stations. It is still not usable but at least they do boot up at this time. The firmware from last year would not even allow a switch to boot up correctly at one of our sites. The log from the switch is below and shows that about every 3 seconds it is having issues.


Apr 27 13:20:33 switch[998]: retrying i2c link to power supply
Apr 27 13:20:36 switch[998]: retrying i2c link to power supply
Apr 27 13:20:39 switch[998]: retrying i2c link to power supply
Apr 27 13:20:45 switch[998]: retrying i2c link to power supply
Apr 27 13:20:48 switch[998]: retrying i2c link to power supply
Apr 27 13:20:51 switch[998]: retrying i2c link to power supply

As for using AC models that is of course an option. The reason we were using a DC model at this site is so that everything can be on battery backup without having to convert from AC to DC then back to AC again. When what you want is to have a reliable system the object is to use as few components as possible. We are using a simple AC charger to charge up four 12 VDC batteries in parallel to provide a long battery backup. There are other components on this battery plant and they are limited to 12 VDC operation. Although you may not consider it a design flaw that is what I and probably more than a few of your other customers think. If a switch is taken into an environment that could be considered typical at many radio sites across the country and the product fails to boot or has constant errors then it is a design flaw.

I should have noted I tried using the most current beta v1.4.0rc12

[sirhc]

I can confirm that your software changes have made the problems less severe with a DC switch at a site with FM radio stations. It is still not usable but at least they do boot up at this time. The firmware from last year would not even allow a switch to boot up correctly at one of our sites. The log from the switch is below and shows that about every 3 seconds it is having issues.


Apr 27 13:20:33 switch[998]: retrying i2c link to power supply
Apr 27 13:20:36 switch[998]: retrying i2c link to power supply
Apr 27 13:20:39 switch[998]: retrying i2c link to power supply
Apr 27 13:20:45 switch[998]: retrying i2c link to power supply
Apr 27 13:20:48 switch[998]: retrying i2c link to power supply
Apr 27 13:20:51 switch[998]: retrying i2c link to power supply

As for using AC models that is of course an option. The reason we were using a DC model at this site is so that everything can be on battery backup without having to convert from AC to DC then back to AC again. When what you want is to have a reliable system the object is to use as few components as possible. We are using a simple AC charger to charge up four 12 VDC batteries in parallel to provide a long battery backup. There are other components on this battery plant and they are limited to 12 VDC operation. Although you may not consider it a design flaw that is what I and probably more than a few of your other customers think. If a switch is taken into an environment that could be considered typical at many radio sites across the country and the product fails to boot or has constant errors then it is a design flaw.

The new models in production now which are RevF of the WS-12-250-DC should operate at FM sites.
The NEW WS-8-150-DC will as well

We do have another v1.4.0rcX coming out early next week which will be about as good as we can do with the current RevE and below with simple firmware changes.

The New RevF models will start shipping 3rd week of May maybe 4th week maybe sooner.

[6gnet]

Does this effect the WS-6-MINI switches as well ? I have 4 of these working on 4 sites and one of them is a FM/TV tower and it randomly freezes. I'm not able to get any logs but sometimes after few minutes it starts working again (logs show only cold boot) and sometimes it needs to be power cycled... Enviromentals are the same on all 4 locations, cable lengths similiar, same PoE power supplies and even after swapping them, the one on the FM tower freezes randomly (today 7 times, normally once every few days).

-G

[sirhc]

Does this effect the WS-6-MINI switches as well ? I have 4 of these working on 4 sites and one of them is a FM/TV tower and it randomly freezes. I'm not able to get any logs but sometimes after few minutes it starts working again (logs show only cold boot) and sometimes it needs to be power cycled... Enviromentals are the same on all 4 locations, cable lengths similiar, same PoE power supplies and even after swapping them, the one on the FM tower freezes randomly (today 7 times, normally once every few days).

-G

It could but are you sure you're freeze up is not the Flow Control bug in the UBNT firmware?

http://community.ubnt.com/t5/airMAX-AC- ... true#M8233
http://community.ubnt.com/t5/airFiber-B ... true#M3756
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1654

Are you powering any airMAX AC radios or airFIBER Radios?

What firmware version are you running?