). What has given us strange results (never these awesome switches) has been trying to retrofit power options into our cabinet with MINIs. Most of our cabinets had 24v power supplies before we turned Netonix so it wasn't very hard to put in some WS-12-250-DCs and call it good. The MINIs made things interesting however as they required 48v (whether POE or barrel connector). This was a problem as the cabinets only had 24v power supplies.What we have been doing with great success is to put a 24v-to-48v step-up converter between the power supply and the MINI. We probably have about 7 towers done like this.
Well on Sunday I received a notification that an airFiber 5 was down at one of our sites (meaning the entire site was offline). Weather prohibited us from going out that day so we went out first thing Monday morning. Unsure of what to expect, I brought a multitude of spare devices with me (MINI, POE, Voltage tester, etc.)
When we arrived on site and opened the cabinet I was met with the unforgettable smell of electrical burn. I immediately noticed that the MINI had gone dark and showed no link lights. I pulled the barrel connector and plugged in my voltage tester to it. What I saw next could only be described as visceral terror.....83.3V!
Needless to say the MINI was totally destroyed; I'm talking black, BBQ grill brush charcoal. Somehow the 24v-to-48v step-up converter had failed catastrophically and was pushing a huge amount of voltage into the MINI. Fortunately I had brought a WS-8-150-DC with me just in case so I wired that up directly to the 24v power supply. I turned on 48VH on port 1 and connected the AF5. I didn't even bother reprogramming the switch yet. I just wanted to see if my AF5 was still drawing breathe
Now some of you may be aware that the AF5s take a LONG time before they establish a LAN link. That was the longest wait of my life. A quick UBNT discovery revealed that my precious AF5 was alive and well. I reprogrammed the new switch and we were back up and running in less than 10.Moral of the story here, be REALLY careful which electrical components you use at your sites. A $10 part may just cost you a $1000 radio.
Happy WISPing guys!
