[smartBridges] PowerShots - Problems?

[Colin Watson]

Hi,       I posted a bit back about problems with 1.08 firmware (at least I thought they were) - SmartBridges being excellent in Customer service offered to monitor the suspect dud unit remotely - however I had already downgraded the customer to 1.07 firmware, so I declined. Problem was, a week ago they were on the phone  - unit failed again - couldn't get access to the internet (This was with 1.07 firmware). I checked the unit, logged in remotely, checked linkstatus, pinged the devices management IP and it seemed perfect - Reset the unit, told the customer to reboot the PC and powercycle the device, but still no traffic passed. I truck rolled down there, this time thinking I would have to replace the unit (not something thats economical - and therefore really want to avoid) - and on a hunch, replaced the powershot unit. No sooner had I done this, and everything worked - instantly. Now, this morning (Friday), another customer rings up, exactly the same problem - can't pass traffic. They are running 1.07 firmware though. I replaced the powershot with a brand new one - and again - perfect. So far, out of 25 SmartBridges, I have been forced to replace 5 powershots, because of failure or this wierd lockup problem causing the ethernet to stop passing traffic. They are all incidentally, being RMA'd now - bar one which I took apart. What I've noticed is the quality control on the power shot units seems - at least in the 5 I have, awful. One has only two RJ45 wires in it, and no plastic gunk to hold them in place, the other three all appear to have bad crimping (judging from inspection under one of those circular lit hobbyist magnifying glasses - as seen in the film Ronin). Normally, when I crimp RJ45, I ensure the wire ends are forced right up to the end, so that when the crimping tool is applied - it bites through the wires and makes proper contact. It looks to me, that the intermittend faults I was receiving (some units would work for a week before any problems) appear from intermittent contacts - the wires were not flush against the end of the plug, so when crimped some may be only partially making contact. If I was not so hard up, I would have recrimped all the ends, but I am so I can't risk voiding the returns :). This leads me to the following conclusions:   1) The PowerShot units may be badly crimped in some cases - if you can stomech the $20 - recrimp the data plug - see if it fixes the problem. 2) The PowerShot unit design is FLAWED.         - Please *USE* a square block - not the stupid tube - it doesn't sit on anything other then the floor - which is the worst place for something so important.         - Use RJ45 SOCKETS - NOT One socket and one plug of stupidly fixed length. Cisco Do, Alvarion Do, Proxim Do, Why *DON'T* smartBridges?                - The unit I opened up revealed that the plug that goes to power and data has a strain relief (cable tie) at one end, and the wires are splayed out onto a pad to which they are soldered - Problem is, it's only a cable tie thats holding the wire to the RJ45 data plug, and power plug.             - This leads me to my final point. Often, in installations, the customers RJ45 port is integrated into the motherboard (or router is on top of the PC etc etc) - this means it is suspended approximatly 1-1.5+ feet above the ground.The powershots RJ45 connector is fed into this point (the cable being approximatly 4 inches from the small splitter block), but then you have the *entire* weight of the powershot suspsended from 1.5 feet in the air (What if someone trips over it? No Give - BAD DESIGN). Consider the whole data/power wire is held in place by a cable tie - this is obviously not good. If you could crimp your own RJ45 then this wouldn't be an issue, just run 4ft of RJ45 (And provide *some slack*) to the PC and leave the powershot by the mains plug.   These obvious design deficiencies may well be the cause of some problems people are having.I have been tempted to mount my own socket on the end of a powershot data plug, this removing this obstacle (even if it does void the warrenty) because I *cannot* be truck rolling out to fix units. I will reiterate this to smartBridges - *I dont want to SEE the customer, unless they want to give me more money*. And No, I cannot afford to deploy POE Outdoors - especially unneccessairly when this could be cured by using a $0.15 socket instead of a stupid fixed length rj45 wire.   I want to finally point out that these are changes that I feel are really necessary - the support provided by smartBridges has been second to none, but there products are by no means perfect - this needs to be fixed because I, and many other WISPS currently cannot afford expensive truck rolls. Much like DSL providers, I want to *KNOW* my end is reliable, so I can fault find with the customer - I don't want to have a horrible uncertainty hanging over my head from poorly designed interface equipment that forces me, or the guys I hire, to rush round to customer premesis. - I look forward to a quick fix :)     Kind Regards   Colin Watson.