Netonix Forums

Okay so long story short, I've been dying for these for the longest time, mainly because of all our repetitive APC battery-backup issues. Backups lockup during power surges, doesn't matter the brand, and a tech needs to somehow get to the site simply to "reset" it. VERY damaging to our up-time for our customers.

Building a PURE-DC setup at each tower site, using a Tycon 48VDC power supply/battery charger/backup system is the most reliable method I've come across. And you can scale your backup time by using either say 40Ah 12V batteries (4 will fit in large NEMA box), or for indoor/shelters, we use (4) large 75Ah AGM batteries which can give over 4 DAYS of backup runtime!!!

Chris, I've had a MINI switch out there for over 6 months, and thats been it so far. It has not failed ONCE. 2nd, I'm now programming up a bunch of the 12-port DC models, and I must say I LOVE how I can see all the fine-detailed statistics such as temps, fan speed, and very important the power consumption, etc. That is something I've never seen before and it very nice to have such an informative web UI. I feel so much more "power" and control this way lol.

I have just a few simple questions below, if someone experience can answer anything. Going to be deploying these things like crazy at all my major sites. Most of which, will have a smaller switch for backhaul, as sometimes we have a tower that feeds 2-3 other towers, and need to be kept on the same network, and separated. Then powers up a Mikrotik 1100AHx2, which on the LAN side of that, a Netonix 12-port POE for all the AP's.


- I'm noticing on my 12 port model, just upgraded the F/W to 1.3.8, the CPU/Board, etc TEMP stats are in C instead of F. I looked everywhere but didn't see an option to change that. Is there any way to change it to Fahrenheit so that when I see the numbers I can make sense of them rather than using an online converter?

- I noticed the firmware upgrade process takes quite a long time for just a switch. And when it reboots, its offline for over a minute. Am I safe to upgrade my WISP Mini switch jumping from 1.2.2 all the way to 1.3.8? It's a big jump, and its a VERY remote site to access. Has anyone ever had any lockups or anything when upgrading F/W? It's been working fine, I'd hate to brick anything that isn't having problems, simply cause I'd like to upgrade it. I also saw warnings that you can't downgrade to 1.2.2 on my 12 port switch, so hoping 1.2 and 1.3 models are cross-compatible to a certain degree.

- In the process of converting all our sites to a PURE-DC setup, I noticed our DragonWave Compact+ Licensed 11Ghz radios are powered by POE, but using a $300 surge/power injector box we had to use from them, its a heavy-duty unit, could I bypass that and power it by 48VH? I think the power requirement is 50V, but has anyone ever tried this on a licensed radio? I know if worse comes to worse, I could just cut the barrel-connector power cord and wire it straight to my Tycon 300W power supply at 48V, so I would have battery backup still, but won't have any reboot capabilities still. I know you shouldn't probably need to reboot licensed links, but I think its always nice to have the option.

Thanks for any in-sight, and I can't wait to start upgrading/bullet-proofing all of our towers!

Don't remember where I found this forumula, but we use the dude and to convert from celsius to fahrenheit we use this:

Router Temp=[((oid("iso.org.dod.internet.private.enterprises.mikrotik.mikrotikExperimentalModule.mtXRouterOs.mtxrHealth.10.0")/10)*1.8)+32]°

Above is for a MT, but the forumula is basically multiple the celsius number by 1.8 and add 32.

As far as updates I have never had a problem with a switch not coming back to life and we have a dozen of em or so out already.

Thanks, but why is it my WISP Mini switch with 1.2.2 has the Temp already at F instead of C? There must be a conversion in the switch somewhere?

We also are going to DC on the majority of our sites. Decided to go with a full 12 volt bus battery bank, rather than 24 or 48 v. That just seemed to be a big hassle trying to find 24 volt and 48 volt chargers and stuff, and make sure it charged the batteries correctly. Re-wiring all sites for 12 volts now!

We then are using several DC-DC Upconverter power units to get from the 12 volts to 24 volts, and 12 volts to 48 volts. (they will go up to 60 volts output). Each PS is capable of about 5-6 amps output, and we then parallel them to get what is needed at the site, and run their output through a diode block to isolate them from each other.
These PS units are available on EBAY for about $4-6. each.

Now have several running Netonix switches, at 48 volts, running Mimosa and UBNT equipment on them. Have gone through the heavy lightning monsoons with them this summer, and they have not missed a beat !

Awaiting 2 additional WS-12-250-DC units to come in this week to start wiring and installing at our newest tower.

I suggest using MINKOTA Chargers for on grid sites where AC is available.

They are 3 stage smart chargers so they can recover fully discharged AGM batteries if you use the WS-12-250-DC switch to fully discharge the site in an emergencies.

With most batteries if you discharge them below a certain point you need a charge that can charge 10A per battery to recover them.

We then are using several DC-DC Upconverter power units to get from the 12 volts to 24 volts, and 12 volts to 48 volts. (they will go up to 60 volts output). Each PS is capable of about 5-6 amps output, and we then parallel them to get what is needed at the site, and run their output through a diode block to isolate them from each other.
These PS units are available on EBAY for about $4-6. each.

Not sure why you are using these, the whole idea of our WS-12-250-DC switch is that it can accept 9-60V input and still power 24V and 48V devices. Just hook it directly to the battery bank then all you need is a charger, nothing else and you can then run the battery bank all the way down to 9V in an emergency.

It is not wise to have a 12V site unless it is small as our WS-12-250-DC has 250W of capacity down to about 12V then it only has 150W below that.

With the MINKOTA chargers you buy either a 1 bank, 2 bank, or 4 bank unit and the charger charges each battery independently even if the batteries are set up in series to produce 48V.

Also do not use lead acid car batteries use AGM batteries, they last longer both in discharging and battery cycles (how many times you can charge and discharge them).

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Thanks for the info Chris. I wanted to also point out that since these DC switches show power consumption, you 'could' do some equations and figure out a rough runtime estimate!!

wispwest wrote:Thanks for the info Chris. I wanted to also point out that since these DC switches show power consumption, you 'could' do some equations and figure out a rough runtime estimate!!

We are working on such a feature in a future firmware release

That's awesome Chris! Yes, something where you can enter in your AH's in battery capacity, and it will calculate the estimated runtime by how much its consuming. I guess my sites with (4) 12V 40AH batteries will only provide 40AH on 48V, at least that's how I think you calculate it.

Lastly, if you could make a model that allows an external temp probe port, you could slap one on the side of your batteries and make a calc that factors in the temp of the batteries as well. If you want to get serious about knowing runtime during all seasons....