WS-6-MINI Keeps crashing/rebooting?

[sbyrd]

Since the "damaged" switches were powered by the POE-IN port do you think there is any possibility they would work fine if powered by the barrel connector port?

[sirhc]

Since the "damaged" switches were powered by the POE-IN port do you think there is any possibility they would work fine if powered by the barrel connector port?

Good question, do not know the answer, I am sure Dave would know.

Options:
PM Dave and ask
Try it and let us know

[sbyrd]

Since the "damaged" switches were powered by the POE-IN port do you think there is any possibility they would work fine if powered by the barrel connector port?

Good question, do not know the answer, I am sure Dave would know.

Options:
PM Dave and ask
Try it and let us know

PM sent. Wish I had one to test with. Depending on what he says I may buy one.

[Dave]

50-50 shot it will work with barrel input power.

ie..if it is the input transformer that is damaged, it is on the other side of the bridge rectifier compared to the barrel connector.

[sirhc]

An update, so far the 3rd switch with the fixed grounding is still running.

Lets hope for Seth that it stays working for the next couple days before we close this issue.

But either way people need to pay more attention to grounding because lack of proper grounding is a killer to equipment.

Seth will keep us posted over the next couple days.

[sbyrd]

Well this looks to be the final update. The switch has been running for 2days and 17hours without any issues. It has been around 90F outdoor temp and sunny so the issue was NOT heat related. My poor grounding led to the damage of 2 MINIs. I might not go to the same level of grounding as Sirhc recommends, but at the very least I will NEVER have my AC ground and tower ground NOT bonded together.

[sirhc]

Tyler was pulling AC power from a house 150' away as well as Earth Ground and the tower had its own ground rods. He will be making a post to confirm this in this thread later today or so he promised me.

Same deal as with Seth's problem above.

I had him do what I had Seth do above (shown in picture below) and Seth's problem was solved but not until he fried 2 WS-6-MINI switches.

Service Grounds and Tower Ground must be bonded or do not use the Service ground if pulling power in such a way from another distant location.

CLICK IMAGE BELOW TO VIEW FULL SIZE

People good grounding is IMPORTANT!

Ground is not ground, ground potential differences equals current and to much current kills electronics even current created by ground potential differences.


Here are some good posts on grounding:
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=188
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1429

[sirhc]

Hoping Tyler posts his experience here later today which was the same as Seth's.

[6gnet]

I have a situation where both the mini and antennas (mini tower on a 2" pipe) are grounded to electrical grid only via heavy gauge wire. Electrical grounding was verified to be good and we checked it again today. Mini is powered by a WS-12-250AC (also grounded to same grounding block) via PoE however as of 48h ago we started experiencing similar symptoms to ones described in this thread. There has been no severe weather (not even rain) within last 3 days yet the mini started acting strange. When powering 2x ubiquity antennas it's running fine, adding a third one causes the switch to freeze and sometimes reboot.
When comparing to other minis working in similar environment I noticed that the one that's causing problems does not have stable voltage on the status page:

The voltage fluctuates between 43.4V to 48.8V and between 23.xV to 25.xV

Besides double checking grounding, here's what we've done so far:
1. Tried to power it via AirFiber supply - same result
2. Run a new cable tried both 48VH port and power brick - same result

So I've opened 2 new mini, fresh out of a box today, plugged it in to an AirFiber PS (new) and here's the interesting part: one of them has a stable 47.xV on the status page the second one is fluctuating. I decided to run both on the bench with 2x airfiber radios plugged in and 2x powerbeams and for about an hour they ran ok (one with stable voltage one with fluctuating voltage).
After this bench test we replaced the mini from the tower with a new one from the box that had fluctuating voltage, it locked up within 30 minutes just like the old one, so I went back and put the second one with stable voltage on the tower: it's been up for 4h 42m.

I know bad grounding can harm electronics, but being an electrical engineer the above does not make any sense.........the only difference between the minis on the bench is dates when we bought them....on the other hand there's another mini on a tower, grounded to electrical ground only that has been up for 14 days 05:53:51
and looking at the status page, the voltage is also going up and down but it's rock solid.

To summarize:
1. one of the oldest minis we have: up for 14 days 05:53:51, flactuating voltage is rock solid (powers 1x af5x + 3x lbe-5ac-120)

2. mini bought around the same time with flactuating voltage has been running ok for weeks until about 48h ago (powers 1x rocket ac-lite, 1x lbe-5ac-120, 1x powerbeam 30)
3. another mini straight from the box that showed flactuating voltage on the status page also had the same lockup problems within 30 minutes after replacing one form #2
4. the last mini we got, that has a stable voltage and has been running ok for last 4h when installed in place of #2

All minis with the same firmware 1.4.2rc7, all airmax ac devices running 7.2 firmware, all minis powered by another netonix switch, cable run about 50m (from 48m to 61m) to each, same enviromentals (about 10 miles from each other), same grounding system, same electrical grid, no weather problems in last 3 days....

I'm really lost here, any suggestions will be more than welcome!

-G

[Dave]

are you near any FM or other RF type interference?