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Well, unfortunately it looks like one of our WS-24-400A (MAC- EC:13:B3:01:01:6C ) is down for the count. Had it up on our highest mountain tower site and it had been rolling along for the last four months or so without a hiccup. The other night, however, got notices that everything was down on the hill and after loading up the quad, ran up to the top and discovered a dark switch. Messed with it for a while... unplugged everything, tried a new power cord, new outlet, etc. but the thing looks to be completely dead- no lights at all. Ended up having to put the ToughSwitches it replaced back in service temporarily to get everything back up. Major bummer.

Next steps?

Well it is possible the power supply died or maybe the board.
Call me Nelson 717-682-8692 and I will arrange a fast RMA.

As I said it was a matter of time before we had some RMA's With well over 500 units out there I would expect at least 5 RMA's by now and this makes 3 so at least 2 more within the next month.

For a first rev product a 1% failure rate is a pretty darn good GOOD percentage to shoot for which currently we are below but I suspect we will hit 1% +/- on the first rev.

Look at Ubiquiti with the Titanium M5 Radios, it even happens to the BIG boys!

Now obviously we want to get it below 1% if possible which we do by looking at RMA units to see what components fail and change them to either a higher grade or different manufacturer on subsequent production runs.

One thing to add to the discussion after speaking with Chris that I do think is fair to mention is that we had to cycle power on the power strip that the WISP Switch was connected to. The power strip was connected to a purse sine-wave inverter which was connected to a battery bank fed by utility power so we feel that we have conditioned power (122 volts steady), but who knows if something went wrong and zapped the WS-24-400A. That seemed to be the only device that didn't come back up, but of course had the biggest load in terms of connected devices. When I ship it back I am hopeful Chris and Dave will let us know what they find as the culprit.

One other thing Chris mentioned was a recommendation to abandon this setup and move to a Tripp-Lite UPS. I'm hoping he responds with a link to the model number of the units he is using along with the batteries as we are definitely interested in going that direction at this and one of our other remote sites.

We use Tripp Lite inverter Chargers.

Sometimes we get them off eBay sometimes other sites like Amazon. They come is a wide range of watts and AC and DC input.
For instance we normally use the 750 Watt version for most towers but sometimes we use the 1250 watts.

Sometimes we get them off eBay sometimes other sites like Amazon. They come in a wide range of watts and AC and DC input.

For instance we normally use the 750 Watt version for most towers but sometimes we use the 1250 watts. The wattage ratting is for constant draw and they surge to 200% rating I think for inrush draw/deman.

You can get them where they charge 12V, 24, or 48V batter banks with multi stage charging such as trickle, low, med, high charge. We use the 12V DC battery bank version that way we can add as many batteries in parallel as we want to increase tower up time on batteries.

You can get them where they use 220V AC or 120V AC, we use the 120V AC units.

They use Grid power when available then they will switch if grid fails and even add to grid power to maintain 120V in the event of brown outs.

I am guessing from talking to Nelson about what he found at the site on arrival to the tower that there was "something" that happened to the AC power which damaged the power supply, what it was is not YET known!

This is just a guess but we will dissect his unit when we get it back and post the results here. But even so we are at 3 RMA's (which is a very low percentage) and I have yet to receive any of them back yet to determine what the failures were.

THREE IS NOT A BAD RATIO SO FAR FOR 1ST REV!!!!

Thanks Chris... and which batteries do you recommend?

sirhc wrote:We use Tripp Lite inverter Chargers.

Sometimes we get them off eBay sometimes other sites like Amazon. They come is a wide range of watts and AC and DC input.
For instance we normally use the 750 Watt version for most towers but sometimes we use the 1250 watts.

Sometimes we get them off eBay sometimes other sites like Amazon. They come is a wide range of watts and AC and DC input.

For instance we normally use the 750 Watt version for most towers but sometimes we use the 1250 watts. The wattage ratting is for constant draw and they surge to 200% rating I think for inrush draw/deman.

You can get them where they charge 12V, 24, or 48V batter banks with multi stage charging such as trickle, low, med, high charge. We use the 12V DC battery bank version that way we can add as many batteries in parallel as we want to increase tower up time on batteries.

You can get them where they use 220V AC or 120V AC, we use the 120V AC units.

They use Grid power when available then they will switch if grid fails and even add to grid power to maintain 120V in the event of brown outs.

http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/1 ... 1b2166c62d

I use these batteries:


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Optima-SC34DM-B ... 6b&vxp=mtr

Nate - We use the 750APS also, and it works very, very well for us. A samlex charger to a battery bank, and a DC switch is what we need.

WisTech wrote:a DC switch is what we need.

We have people working around the clock on it!

WisTech,
What model(s) of samlex charger do you use?
How many batteries do you use at a typical site?