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I understand about the power issues and how long of a reading
it takes to find transient power problems. Back in the "olden" days of the
computer business when I was doing field service on mini computer systems, we
used to have to put recorders on the power to prove to customers that the flaky,
intermittent problems they were having were due to power problems and not our
equipment. But electronics have come a long way since then, supposedly,
and today's equipment, coupled with good UPS's have made that type of problem
history, or so I thought. As to the environmental conditions and static
issues, IMHO, if the smartBridges are that sensitive, then that is a flaw in
their design. These units are supposed to be designed for outdoor use and
therefore should not be so sensitive to environmental issues. My Trango
backhaul unit is on the same mast with one of my APPO's, grounded the same, its
POE and power supply is in the same NEMA box, plugged into the same UPS, and its
cat-5 cable is running right along side the APPO's, tie wrapped to the handrail
on the water tower. The Trango has not burped or glitched ONCE in the 4
weeks or so we have had this equipment up. Now, the smartBridges may not
be "bad" as in "non-operational", but they are exhibiting many glitches and much
flakiness or sensitivities that the Trango is not. I still think the APPOs
are either overly sensitive to the heat or some other environmental condition
that we haven't figured out yet.
Thank you for your help - it is much appreciated,
Gloria
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2003 11:33
PM
Subject: RE: [smartBridges] help with
APPO problem
A basic voltage
reading only tells a small part of the story. Most UPSs only 'fix' the voltage
if it is outside of a predefined range. Mid priced supply a constant voltage
from an inverter and battery while always charging the battery. While the
voltage is fairly stable the waveform of that voltage is crude. The APC I
recomended is an always on design with true sine-wave output. This is
important for problem line voltages. Other power quality issues that a
voltmeter can't show is harmonics, fast transiants, frequence, spikes, sags,
current loading and more.
Another thing
you may want to look at is static. In dry, windy conditions, the air moving
over your data lines will create high static voltages. Since the water tower
is painted there is no easy way for that static to disipate. Are your data
lines in metal conduit? Is it grounded. Even though the radios cases are
plastic and the metal mounting tabs have no electrical connection to the
electronics, grounding the mounting tabs on the radio and entry seals to the
NEMA box will help to reduce static on the cases and wire. If your wires are
no in conduit, make sure they are securly attached to something so that there
is no movement of cable on any surface. For severe conditions (like a water
tower in the Texas summer :-) I would even reccomend making a wind break/sun
shield that shields/covers your NEMA box and radios. A PVC box will produce A
LOT of static. Use a metal box if possible, if not, line the inside with foil
and wrap a small guage wire around the outside of the box several times, fold
one end inside the box to touch the foil and then ground the other
end.
I know this
sounds like a lot of work, but static is a major radio killer that is very
hard to track down. Power Line quality and static on transmission lines are
probably the two biggest mystery killers is our field.
Just got back from the water tower. We replaced the
old power strip with two new ones (didn't have one big enough for all the
power supplies). Unfortunately, that wasn't the problem. One of
the sb power supplies was plugged directly into the UPS, not the power strip,
and it was locked up. So we know the power strip was not the
problem. Checked the voltage at the output of the UPS for about 20
minutes and it was rock solid at 117.5V, never fluctuated more than .4V.
Of course we would have to put a power recorder on it to test for 24 hours to
see if anything like a pump cutting on is causing a large spike or drop, but
the UPS is supposed to filter out the majority of that. So basically, we
are back at square one. It has to be either power related or heat
related since we replaced one of the radios and that didn't help, or all the
radios that have come out of SB since June have the same tendency. Which
I really doubt. So still open to ideas. We are going to try and
get some sleep while they are all up before something goes down again and the
phone calls start up again.
Thanks to everyone for your help - and keep the suggestions
coming,
Gloria
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2003 10:17
PM
Subject: RE: [smartBridges] help with
APPO problem
Is the power
strip also a surge protector? You only want one AC surge protector inline
with your devices. Use a power strip that is only a power strip (like an AC
splitter). Having two surge supressors in line has a strange effect of
making each one LESS effective by tricking the other in to thinking the
surge is not as bad as it really is and letting more noise
through.
Actually, my tech and I are discussing power issues right
now. That seems to be the most likely culprit at this point. I
think we are going over to the water tower and change out the power strip
and see if that helps. All the POE's are plugged into the same power
strip which is plugged into the UPS. Our Trango has not burped once
and it is plugged directly into the UPS. Maybe our power strip is
noisy or has a bad ground. Will let you know what we find when we get
back from the tower.
Thanks for all your help - I sincerely appreciate
it,
Gloria
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2003 8:39
PM
Subject: Re: [smartBridges] help with
APPO problem
Do NOT rule out power. It could be a little too
high or a little too low and MOST ups units won't compensate for
that.
Also, if there are large pumps there it's quite likely
that you are getting intermittent brownouts that the unit won't quite kick
in for.
See if a local electrician has a voltage recorder.
We saw many VERY strange copier problems caused by power
issues.
It seems VERY strange that FOUR units would all do the
same thing at the same time. I've used 3 or 4 of them of late and
had NO bad ones. Only a dead eithernet port but that happened after
a wicked lightning storm and we also lost a computer nic card on that same
system so I'll not blame sb for this one.
I'm home if you want to call and talk about some of
this. The office line rings here too.
509.982.2181
marlon
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2003
6:31 PM
Subject: Re: [smartBridges] help
with APPO problem
It just keeps getting better. Now three of them
are down, which means only one is up. We know for sure now that it
is not the POE, the power supply, or the radio, unless the one I got in
as a replacement has the same problem as the one it replaced, which is
highly likely. Either all the APPOs have the same problem,
including the ones that are still shipping, or we have some kind of
weird power problem. Since everything is plugged into a UPS, I
don't see how it could be power, but I am not ruling out anything at
this point. Now I just have to try and convince the only tech
on duty tonight to climb the water tower again. This makes six
nights in a row that he has had to climb that damn tower. I know,
I know we should have designed it with things on the ground, but we
didn't know we were going to have this much trouble with the equipment,
and we were trying to make the city happy and keep everything as
unobtrusive and out of sight as possible. It is too late to
redesign the whole system, we don't have the money to start all
over.
Gloria
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2003
8:03 PM
Subject: Re: [smartBridges] help
with APPO problem
Get a couple of 100' high grade extension
cords. Put your ups unit on the ground and when you need to
reboot them just pull the plug for 10 seconds.
Not a good fix but better that what you have till we
figure out what to do about the ap's....
marlon
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2003
11:39 AM
Subject: Re: [smartBridges]
help with APPO problem
Marlon,
My AC runs up the water tower from a breaker at
the base of the tower. There is an AC outlet in my NEMA box
with the UPS plugged into it, a power strip into that, with all the
power supplies and the D-Link switch plugged into that. All
the cat-5 is outdoor rated, shielded and gel filled, all cables
tested with a cable tester after being built up on the tower.
As for lightning arrestors, we haven't had any sign of lightning or
a drop of rain in months - this is north Texas where rain doesn't
exist from June until October. I don't see how I would run a
power cord down the tower, it just doesn't seem possible. We
can try moving the cat-5 cables around to different ports on the
switch to see if it is one port on the switch that is failing, but
since we have had two different units fail now with the same exact
problem and they are on different ports, I don't think that would
tell us much.
Any more ideas - I am always willing to listen and
try different things,
Gloria
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, August 23,
2003 1:00 PM
Subject: Re: [smartBridges]
help with APPO problem
First off, run a power cord to the bottom of the
tower for a bit so you can just unplug it to reset everything
;-).
If multiple units are seeing failed eithernet
ports you might need to look at your switch. Also, might
want to make sure you have good lighting arrestors on the cat 5
ports.
In almost 4 years of this wisp stuff I've only
lost a couple of ethernet ports and both of those were at the same
place and on the same linksys cable router.
Until this fall. We lost two sb radios
with dead ethernet ports durning a storm. One ap and one
client. At one location the homeowner also lost the ethernet
port in the dell computer. At another location all radios
are fine but the customer lost a nic in a dell
computer.
I'm thinking that there may be some crappy
ethernet ports on the market?
marlon
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, August 23,
2003 9:50 AM
Subject: Re: [smartBridges]
help with APPO problem
Marlon,
I don't have any spares here. The only
extras I have are the one we took down night before last that we
thought was bad, and an indoor that was sent to me instead of an
outdoor.
We replaced the POE with a known good one on
Wednesday night, we replaced the radio itself Thursday night,
and replaced the power supply last night. So far it is up,
but it usually takes about 24 hours for it to go
down.
Now a different one is down - same problem -
dead Ethernet side, can't talk to it. This is the first
time this one has gone down since we put them up three or four
weeks ago.
If you have any more ideas, let me know.
I am willing to try anything at this point, if my techs don't
quit because they are sick and tired of climbing the water tower
every night to either reset something or replace
something.
Thanks for your help,
Gloria
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, August
23, 2003 10:24 AM
Subject: Re:
[smartBridges] help with APPO problem
You have other ones there
right?
First, swap ethernet ports on the
switch. Swap power supplies and then power injectors (I
just had a bad power shot) with a known good working
unit.
If none of that works, swap the ap with a
known good working unit. If the problem moves, yep,
really bad luck! If the problem stays with another
radio, it's environmental.
I know when we first got started we were on
one end of a 30 mile ptp wmux link. It would totally
shut down my radio. Similar to what you are
seeing.
Call me and let me know what you find or if
you'd like to talk about this a bit more.
*Time to learn those trouble-shooting
techniques ;-)*
marlon
509.988.0260 cell
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, August
22, 2003 6:30 PM
Subject: [smartBridges]
help with APPO problem
Anyone got suggestions as to what is
causing one of my APPOs to go down? We have had to
climb the water tower and reset it three times in the last
week. We replaced the POE on Wednesday and it went
down again Thursday. I ordered a new unit overnighted
and replaced the unit last night. It worked great all
day today, but is down again now. The outdoor rated
cat-5 run is only about 20 feet, the cable was tested with a
cable tester before putting it in place, everything is water
proofed (even though we haven't had rain in months).
What else is there? The POE was replaced, the entire
unit was replaced, and we still have the same exact
problem. When it does this, the Ethernet LED is off,
the Power and TXRX LED is on solid, and we have no
communication with it. Did I get so lucky as to get
two bad units with the same exact problem? The only
item that has not been replaced is the power supply - could
that be bad? All the other units on the water tower
are working fine since I upgraded the firmware last
Sunday. They are all plugged into the same switch,
which is plugged into a UPS and all of it is in an air
conditioned NEMA box.
smartBridges tech - or anyone -
help!
Thanks!
Gloria
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